Indigo Sky
by NumberCDLI
Summary: During their expedition to Zanado, the Red Canyon, Byleth and the Black Eagles encounter a strange man. Subsequently, the students of Garreg Mach Monastery gain a new professor.
1. Chapter 1

**I really need to work on my time management. Struggling to work on my other fics, as slow as those updates are, and here I am, starting yet another.**

**But hey, _Three Houses_ is a fantastic game and I also happened to stumble across this photo ||**** twitter (insert dot here) com/rcsbf / status / 1158369843512393729 || which further poked my wanting to write this.**

**Credit to cover art: pixiv (insert dot here) net / ****member_ ?mode=medium&illust_id=76366568**

**So, while you read this, I shall continue my love-hate relationship with Maddening-Classic.**

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

It felt wrong. The more he looked around, the more _wrong_ it looked and felt. There was no specific or logical reasoning for why it was felt that way, but Byleth held those feelings regardless.

_'You too, huh?'_ Sothis hummed in his head, momentarily surprising Byleth with her sudden voice.

_'Are you going to be able to just speak to me whenever you want?' _he mentally asked, hoping that she'd be able to hear him. He had absolutely no idea how the mental conversations worked, so with luck, if he just focused on Sothis and thought about something, she'd be able to hear his -

_'That is _exactly _how mental conversations work. I didn't think you'd figure it out so quickly. I was honestly hoping that you'd talk out loud and make any passersby think you to be insane,'_ Sothis snarked.

_'...I see.'_

If Byleth concentrated hard enough, he could see Sothis crossing her arms with a pout on her face.

_'Hmph! Even with my help to save your precious students, this is how you repay me - '_ She paused for a second. _'Ah, someone's coming. Edelgard, I think her name was?'_

And that she was. The heiress to the Adrestian Empire was approaching him with a slight look of worry on her face.

"Professor?" Edelgard called out once she was close enough. "So this is where you were. We've been looking for you."

Byleth immediately thought back to his first encounter with the leader of the bandits that they just took care of. Due to a naive oversight on his part, the bandit leader had survived after getting knocked down and was able to catch Edelgard by surprise. Byleth ran forward in an attempt to rescue Edelgard, and it was only due to Sothis' intervention that he survived that night.

And given how the bandit leader, Kostal…or Koster…or something along those lines, had survived the second blow dealt to him that should have been fatal, he clearly had above average stamina. Perhaps he faked his own death a third time and managed a surprise attack on his students when their back was turned and when he was away from them.

"Has something happened?" he asked Edelgard. "Did someone get hurt?"

A look of surprise briefly appeared on Edelgard's face before she softly smiled. She shook her head and said, "Everything is fine, Professor. We were just wondering where you were as we're ready to head back to the monastery."

Byleth nodded once and the two of them started to walk back to the canyon's entrance. At least, that's what would have happened if his eye didn't catch something.

His feet abruptly came to a stop as he turned his head in the direction of that 'something'. It was like a glimmer of light, almost like staring at the moon's reflection on a body of water. It was moving, rippling, and growing brighter with each second.

Edelgard must've noticed that he stopped walking, evident by her appearing by his shoulder. Whether the princess either stopped hearing his footsteps or just happened to turn back, she was here regardless.

"Professor? Is something - " Edelgard's voice trailed off when she noticed the light as well. "What is that?"

Not having a proper response to the question, Byleth took a few steps forward to approach the strange light. Edelgard followed him without hesitation, and soon enough, they were standing a few feet away from the light.

Without any prior warning, the light suddenly became a literal crack in the air. Byleth and Edelgard quickly took a step back, but nothing else happened. The crack then began to spread with the sound of glass shattering, and more light seeped out.

"That…does not seem to bode well, Professor," Edelgard slowly said, reaching for the handle of her axe. "Have you ever seen anything like this during your time as a mercenary?"

Byleth shook his head in response. While he did encounter a few stranger-than-usual things in his life, a crack that formed in the air sat at the very top. Him becoming an impromptu teacher at Garreg Mach Monastery was a close second.

_'Be careful,'_ Sothis warned. _'This is something that I've seen…before? In a dream? Maybe? Ugh…I don't know… In any case, stay on your - '_

She never got the chance to finish warning Byleth when the crack in the air completely shattered. A gust of wind and bright light poured out of the broken space. Momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness, neither Byleth nor Edelgard managed to see a man get hurled out of the light. The man crashed into the Adrestian princess, and they were both sent tumbling to the ground.

"Lady Edelgard!"

The husky and snake-like tone of Edelgard's vassal-slash-retainer, Hubert, reached Byleth's ears as he quickly blinked away the spots in his eyes. He recovered just enough of his vision in time to see Edelgard kick a stranger off of her.

"My Lady, are you all right?" Hubert asked as he helped his ward off the ground.

"I'm fine, Hubert. I was just caught by surprise, that's all," Edelgard assured him, brushing specks of dust off her clothes.

Byleth's vision finally returned in full and he quickly assessed the situation. Just as she said, Edelgard looked fine aside from her short red cape being slightly dirtied from the fall she took. On the ground in front of them, however, a hooded figure lay sprawled out.

"Gods. Damn. It."

With a dramatic groan, the hooded figure - a man, given the voice - began pushing himself off the floor. A multitude of questions popped into Byleth's head, but before he could ask any of them, Hubert voiced a request his own.

"Reveal yourself, stranger."

Granted, it was more of a demand than a request, but the point that he spoke before Byleth still stood.

The figure turned to face them. His hood was still pulled over his face, covering the top half of his face, and yet he was still able to see clearly, evident by the movement of his head. His 'eyes' moved from Hubert, then to Edelgard, and then onto Byleth, to which his hand moved up to scratch the back of his head.

"Who the hell are you guys?" the man asked.

"That's our line!" Casper yelled from somewhere behind Byleth. He turned to see the rest of the Black Eagles standing in a rough semi-circle. When they arrived, he didn't know. "You just came out of nowhere and tackled Edelgard to the ground!"

"He did?" "I did?"

A few members in the Eagles house and the hooded man talked at the same time, causing their voices to overlap with one another.

"Indeed, he did," Hubert affirmed, flexing his fingers. He wore a polite smile but the look in his eyes betrayed any sense of diplomacy. "And so I ask of you again, stranger; who are you."

It was noted by everyone that Hubert's question did not come off as a request, but more of a demand. Again. However, no one spoke up about it.

"You know, it's common courtesy to name yourself before asking others to do so," the man casually said. "Or so the saying goes. I don't - I was never taught it, but I do remember hearing it quite distinctly."

As he finished speaking, the man pulled down his hood with a gloved hand, revealing a bed of platinum-white hair - the same color as Edelgard and that one girl from the Golden Deers. His eyes, which were a warm hazel in color, held the mischievous glint that Claude, the House Leader for the Deers, had. His strangely-marked black coat was donned over a beige colored shirt and grey pants.

"So, will you follow through with the rule that I talk of? Or will you have me introduce myself first despite you initiating our little conversation?" the man asked with a playful smirk. Very Claude-like indeed.

A few seconds passed before Hubert's faux-polite smile almost turned into a mocking one.

"Very well. It seems quite obvious to me that you do not know who you are in the presence of," Hubert said as he straightened his shoulders. "You stand in front of Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the Adrestian Empire."

The man's brow twitched as if he was taken aback from Hubert's statement.

"Huh. Learn something new every day. Pleasure to meet you, Prince Edelgard," the man said with a slight bow to Hubert. "Didn't know you were a male though. I was pretty sure that the heir to the empire was a princess, not a prince."

It took everyone a moment to figure out what the strange man was talking about. When it clicked for them, a few members of the Black Eagles audibly went "Ah".

"Edelgard _is_ a princess," Dorothea said, stifling a giggle with a delicate hand.

The man's face paled immediately. He looked back and forth between Dorothea and Hubert a few times before jabbing a finger in the latter's direction.

"_That's_ a princess?!" he almost yelled. "Are you sure? I mean, I'm not saying that I doubt you or anything, but are you sure?!"

"No no, that's Hubert you're pointing at," Dorothea laughed. "Edelgard is the one right next to him."

Relief flooded the man's face as quickly as it paled only seconds prior.

"Oh, okay," the man breathed out. "That makes a _lot_ more sense." He then turned to Hubert. "Why'd you introduce yourself as the princess? You made things a lot more confusing than it had to be!"

"I did no such thing."

"You kinda did. I was, more or less, asking _you_ for your name and whatnot, and you went ahead and said that I'm in the presence of Edelgard non Hresvleg."

"Edelgard _von Hresvelg_," Hubert corrected.

"So given how that went, you basically implied that you were Edelgard and not the actual Edelgard, and making it unclear that the Edelgard standing next to you was _the_ Edelgard," the man prattled on, clearly ignoring Hubert's remark. "If you just said that your name is…whatever it is - I forgot - and said that the Edelgard standing next to you is Edelgard instead, then that would've made things a lot easier to understand."

Over by the group of students, Petra's brow furrowed as she rubbed her temple with the ball of her hand.

"The man is speaking Edelgard's name many times. I am being confused," she frowned.

"Same here," Casper murmured.

Back with the source of the confusion, Hubert looked like he was about to give the man a verbal beatdown when Edelgard raised a hand in front of him. The silent gesture gave her retainer a pause and he lowered his head in a bow.

"In any case, you have gotten your introduction," Edelgard said. Her facial expression was set in one of indifference but her eyes held a look of mirth in them. "Might I ask you for your name, stranger?"

"Sure!" The man reached up and gestured at the air over his head. "If I had a hat, I'd take it off in a show of respect and all, seeing how you're a princess, but I don't have one. I mean, I've a hood, but that's about it, and that's not exactly a hat. Anyhoo!" He crossed one arm behind his back and the other in front of him as he bent his body at the waist. "You may call me Robin. I'm just a wanderer-slash-mercenary…kind of person. A pleasure to meet you in person." A sour look then crossed his face. "Oof, I just ended two sentences in _"person"_. Scratch that; make that three. Blech, feels weird on the tongue."

"A mercenary?" Edelgard raised a brow, looking over at Byleth.

Robin pointed a finger at Byleth with a slightly bemused expression. "You're a mercenary?"

"Was," Byleth clarified.

"Was, is, same difference." He waved his hand in the general direction of the Black Eagles. "What are you doing with these guys?"

"I'm their professor."

Robin opened his mouth to reply when he froze. He remained frozen for a good three seconds before he blinked and used both his hands to point at Byleth and his students at the same time.

"A professor. You. To them."

"Hmm. So not only does he need things to be explained so clearly that a child could understand it, but he is also hard of hearing," Hubert snidely said.

"Zip it, Severus Snape!" Robin immediately said, moving one of his fingers to point at him.

For the first time in his short time as a professor, Byleth saw Hubert look addled for the first time. Evident by the very slight widening of her eyes, it was the same for Edelgard as well.

"_"Severus Snape"_? What manner of - "

"Wait wait wait, what kind of school would assign a bunch of students that don't even look like they hit their eighteenth year in life to go and kill a bunch of bandits - "

Robin suddenly paused as he turned his attention to the students. His eyes narrowed at them - rather, their uniforms - causing Bernadetta to let out a terrified squeak and hide behind Linhardt, before he slowly nodded in understanding and crossed his arms.

"Ah. I get it now," he said as he continued to nod. "Garreg Mach Monastery, right?"

"That is correct," Edelgard confirmed.

"I see, I see…" He had yet to stop slow-nodding. "And Rhea is still the archbishop?"

"Yes."

Robin finally stopped nodding and let his arms fall to his sides. "Well, it's been nice meeting you all, but I believe it's time for me to take my leave. Y'know, run-the-hell-away-o-clock. Toodles!"

"Wait a minute - " Edelgard tried stopping him but was too late. Robin had already begun running away from them. With a look of determination, she looked over at her retainer. "Hubert, stop him!"

Hubert was already moving before Edelgard finished speaking. An intricate magic seal appeared before him as he thrust out his hand. The seal glowed briefly before vanishing, and tendrils of dark energy sprouted out of the ground at Robin's feet. The tendrils latched onto his ankles, causing him to trip and crash onto the ground with a high-pitched yelp.

"Uhh, Edelgard? Why did you stop him?" Casper asked.

Edelgard and Byleth began making their way towards Robin as the dark tendrils began to wrap themselves around his body.

"He ran once he figured out that we are from the monastery. That is not the usual reaction that one would expect," Edelgard explained. "If he is an enemy of the church, then we must bring him to Lady Rhea so that she may decide what to do with him."

As the tendrils finally stopped constricting around Robin's torso, Sothis gave Byleth one final message before falling silent again.

_'There is a dark presence within that man. Be wary of him.'_

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

"And that is what transpired at the Red Canyon, and why we brought this man back with us," Edelgard said. "According to the knights, he did not have the clearance to enter the Red Canyon either."

There was a part of Byleth felt wrong about letting one of his students handle the mission report, but he pushed that thought away. Edelgard seemed more than comfortable enough with it, he didn't see the harm in letting it happen.

"He seemed quite adamant on not coming to the monastery," Edelgard added. "He would run away whenever the opportunity presented itself, and in the end, we asked one of the villages on the way back for a cart and tied him up inside of it."

"I see. Thank you for your efforts," Rhea serenely smiled. "You may leave now. Seteth shall be here shortly, and we shall take care of things from there."

Byleth's brow furrowed a little, feeling uneasy about leaving the archbishop alone in a room with a stranger.

"It is quite alright," Rhea smiled, having caught Byleth's minute change in expression. "I am quite capable of taking care of myself should the situation call for it."

"…As you wish," Byleth said.

He and Edelgard bowed once more before leaving the room. The heavy doors closed with a heavy _thud_, leaving Rhea and Robin, who was sitting on the floor with chains binding his wrists together, alone in the audience chamber. Neither of them said anything as they stared at each other in complete silence until the doors opened and a tall man with shoulder-length green hair walked in.

"Lady Rhea, you called for - " The man paused when he noticed Robin sitting on the floor. His neutral expression immediately turned into a mildly annoyed frown "Oh. It's you."

Robin flicked his head in a reverse-nod. "'Sup."

The greeting was so casual as if it was a normal interaction between two friends and not one between a man bound in chains and the archbishop's confidant.

"This is the third time that you've arrived here while bound in some form," Seteth sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Do I want to know why?"

"Perhaps." Robin gave Seteth a shrug. "I'm not some sort of mind reader, so I don't know what you want or don't want."

"According to Edelgard, Robin came stumbling out of a crack in the air during their expedition to Zanado," Rhea explained. "He attempted to flee after finding out that they were students here and managed to restrain him before he succeeded in running away."

"Yeesh, it was a panic-warp. Nothing more than that. I swear they looked at me like I was some freak of nature. Little brats," Robin said as he casually broke the iron chains on his wrists. He began to massage the reddened skin before muttering, "Didn't have to make it so tight. Could've loosened it by like one or two links. And besides, I wasn't _"running away"_; I was just prolonging the period of time in which I'd have to come here again."

"So you are avoiding us," Rhea sadly said.

Disappointing the archbishop, the leader of the Church of Seiros, was something of an unspoken rule in Fódlan. The church was one of the highest powers in the land and it was safe to assume that no group or other power wished to contest it. Men and women alike sought to please the archbishop in the chance that they would be blessed by the Goddess.

Robin, on the other hand, was not like most people. He did not care for blessings from the Goddess nor did he actively seek to please the Church of Seiros. He was not an atheist by any means, but he was not a religious person either.

As such, when he was faced with the option of lying in an attempt to pamper to Rhea, he picked his decision immediately.

"Yup," he answered without an ounce of hesitation.

There was another sigh from Seteth. "To declare that so proudly and boldly to Lady Rhea… You truly are something else."

"I aim to please…is what I would normally say, but these circumstances are a bit different, no?" Robin nonchalantly said. "I mean, I outright told you two from the start that I don't really care much for religion and all."

"And why is that, if I may?" Rhea asked. Her head was tilted ever so slightly and her hands were clasped together just above her navel. "You have always steered the topic of conversation away whenever it came up, and I must admit that I am curious as to how you have come to that mindset."

Robin shrugged again and stretched his arms out to his sides. "Travel the world and you meet different people and cultures. Different lands and cultures mean different beliefs, different beliefs mean different gods and so on and so forth. Some of it is folklore, others are religion, and some are just nothing more than a set of guidelines and rules on how to live and behave."

"And you, Robin? What belief do you hold?" Rhea asked. Her demeanor was not unlike that of a child that was only moments away from receiving a present.

"Me? I just live life the way I want to, do what I want to do, and go wherever I want to go. Nothing more, nothing less."

An indecipherable emotion flickered through Rhea's eyes as she nodded, seemingly satisfied with Robin's answer.

"Quite understandable. Thank you for sharing your outlook with us," Rhea said.

"No problem. Now, if there is nothing else…" Robin trailed off, purposely leaving his sentence unfinished as a statement as he turned to leave the chamber.

"A moment, if you will," Rhea called out, stopping him in his tracks.

If one paid close enough attention and had sharp hearing, they would have heard Robin utter a quiet curse under his breath. This, however, was not the case for Rhea and Seteth, for while they did indeed have sharper hearing than most humans, they were not paying _full_ attention to Robin.

After a second of pause, Robin began to slowly turn around. A strained smile was plastered on his face as he answered, "Yes?"

"The last time you were here at the monastery, I offered you a proposition," Rhea said, taking a step forward.

Rhea wore a disarming smile as she walked closer. Robin didn't trust the smile and resisted the urge to turn around and flee.

"Just before you departed from Garreg Mach, you told Seteth and I that you would_ "think on it"_," she continued. "Given how it has been a couple of years since your last visit, I'd like to extend the offer to you once again."

"…Uhh… Isn't that position already taken by the professor of the really confusing class? And I don't mean confusing as in like…they're confusing, but more like…uhh…they're just really bad at clarifying things," Robin huffed. "Seriously, why introduce Person B when Person A asks you for your name? Stupid Snape-looking-and-sounding loon."

"You are correct in saying that the original position was given to Professor Byleth," Rhea started, paying no heed to Robin's rambles. "However, I am afraid that Professor Hanneman is no longer as spritely as he used to be."

"But he still has his mind, no?" Robin countered. "You don't really have to be physically young, relatively, in order to teach."

"You are correct again," Rhea said with a slight nod. "However, were he to relinquish his position, he would have more time on his hands to research and further his life's work. The Crests are still a great mystery to us, and if Hanneman were to focus his time on his research, it would benefit the world greatly."

"But not me specifically, since I neither have a Crest nor do I really care about Crests as a whole."

Seteth lightly shook his head as if reprimanding a child. "You are still a part of this world, are you not? Something that can have an effect on the world will undoubtedly have an effect on you as well."

"…Okay, point. You've got me there," Robin conceded, raising his hands in a surrendering motion.

"Then will you take the position?" Rhea asked with a gentle smile.

"Uggghhhh…" Robin groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. "Can I at least meet the students that I'm going to be teaching before making a decision?"

"Of course," was Rhea's reply. "In fact, you can use today to meet your students and then spend the next two weeks to make your decision."

A small frown marred Robin's face. "Two weeks?" he repeated. "Not that I'm complaining about having that long, but I thought that this was something that was more or less…kinda urgent."

"Not as urgent as it seems. But there is a reason for the time granted," Seteth said in a somewhat tired tone. "You are familiar with Lord Lonato, yes?"

"Uhh…oldish man, stern-looking face, leader of the Gaspard region?" Robin guessed.

Seteth nodded. "Correct. He and his men have incited a rebellion against the church and the Goddess. This was something that was a long time coming, and we would ask you to assist the Knights of Seiros in quelling his forces."

The frown on Robin's face grew deeper. "If this rebellion was a long time coming, then why didn't you put a stop to it before it actually began? You know, prevent these sorts of scenarios by nipping it in the bud before it sprouts? Or pull out the roots before the bud grows? Whichever one fits better."

"We would have done so, but we did not have any solid evidence that a rebellion was starting. Our knights were only able to hear rumors of it, and nothing else," Seteth replied.

"Uggghh…you need some better spies. Or scouts." Robin rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms. "If rumors were circulating around, then it clearly wasn't one of the best or well-planned rebellions. The best coups are the ones that never come to light before it actually happens."

"Oh? Robin, are you volunteering to act as a spy for the church?" Rhea asked.

"Gods no. Spying and being sneaky isn't really my field of expertise," Robin said. "Also, not to be rude or anything, but aren't you overshooting a little bit? Asking me to not only be a professor here at the monastery, but also to assist your knights _and_ be one of your scouts? Those are some hefty requests to throw at someone over the course of some-ten minutes."

Rhea gently laughed, her melodious voice filling the audience chamber.

"As you say, although we _did_ ask you to be a professor years ago, so I believe that one of those requests don't count in the _"some-ten minutes"_," she smiled.

"…Point… Alright, alright, I'll think on it," Robin grumbled. Then he brought his hands together in a clapping motion before pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "Now, if it's all the same to you, I'll be going now. Gotta mentally prepare myself and meet the brats that I may or may not be taking care of for however long to come."

"Very well." Rhea nodded. "As Professor Hanneman is overseeing the Golden Deer house, I'd recommend that you search for the students that have the Golden Deer's insignia on their uniform. Of course, if you wish to familiarize yourself with students of the other houses, you are more than welcome to do so."

"Yup, because I know _exactly_ what their insignia looks like or where it is on their uniform," Robin sarcastically said. "Eh, I'll figure it out somehow. See ya!"

Without wasting another second, Robin turned around and swiftly walked out of the chamber. The heavy doors slammed shut once more, and Seteth waited a few seconds before speaking.

"He's still quite free-spirited as he was years ago. Most mercenaries that I've met lose that spark if they haven't retired or lost their life."

Rhea didn't say anything, opting to simply nod at his words.

"Lady Rhea, are you sure about this?" Seteth asked, turning his body to face the archbishop. "It is one thing to instate Jeralt's child as a professor, but Robin? There is something about him that unsettles me. A darkness. Surely you must feel the same."

"I do, Seteth. This was not something that decided on recklessly. Please believe me when I say that I have slept on it for many weeks," Rhea pleaded.

Silence reigned for a full ten seconds before Seteth finally gave in and sighed. Defeatedly and tiredly. There would be no way to change Rhea's mind, and he knew it.

"…As you wish, Lady Rhea."

"Thank you, Seteth," Rhea smiled. "Now, would you like some tea? Catherine and Cyril gifted me a bag of Cresent-Moon the other day, and I'm afraid I have a little too much at the moment."

"As you wish, Lady Rhea," Seteth repeated.

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

Elsewhere in the monastery, two people firmly shook hands with devious grins plastered on their faces.

"You… I like you."

"The feeling's mutual."

"I do believe that we'll have a lot of fun in the coming months, don't you think?"

"Oh, you better believe it. The others will never see it coming, _Teach_."

And so began the friendship between Robin and Claude.

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

**Those that know me or have read my other stories may be thinking, **_"Another fic with FE:A's Robin?"_

**Hey, in my defense, Robin is an incredibly easy character to write.  
Also because Robin and Claude seem like they'd get along really, _really_ well.  
**

**I really like Three Houses. It may have taken the spot as my favorite Fire Emblem game (but not my favorite game of all time. That title still belongs to Golden Sun). The writing is brilliant in every route save for a few bits (like in Edelgard's route), which is partially why I started this fic. I'm planning on a "true" route sort of deal.**

**As for the general mood for the story… It'll be lighthearted the majority of the time. I plan on focusing a bit more on the characters and some behind-the-scene bits for the Academy Phase rather than the fights. The main chapter plots will still be happening, but I won't be focusing **_**too**_ **much on it, similar to how I'm doing RWBY's story in my _"_**_**A Shepherd's Rest"**_ **story.**

**And to those of you that love Dimitri, don't worry. He's not getting shafted. He'll be getting his Byleth-like professor later.**

**Now, time for me to continue working on my other fics before another month passes without any update.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So. Uhh…this story got more popular than I was expecting. I was honestly expecting like****…half the numbers I have now. Less, even.**

**Oh well, I guess that just goes to show how little I know/understand audiences.**

**Also, the EXP gain in Maddening Mode is infuriating (or _maddening_. Heh, geddit?). Thank god for the gold farming maps that have higher level enemies than the standard auxilary maps else I'd be super underleveled.**

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

"Hey, Claude!"

A chirpy voice easily made itself heard over the din of the dining hall. A tray stacked with food was set down in front of him and a pink-haired girl took the seat across from his. Her eyes, which were the same shade as her rose-colored hair, were alight with amusement.

"Did you hear the rumors?" she asked.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific, Hilda," Claude said. "There are a lot of rumors and bits of gossip that perpetuate the air of this renowned monastery."

Hilda light-heartedly rolled her eyes and leaned forward a little. "About our new professor!"

A knowing smirk appeared on Claude's lips. "I may have heard a thing or two."

It wasn't necessarily a lie. While it was true that he did meet their to-be professor in person just before Robin left to assist the Knights of Seiros, he _also_ heard the rumors that practically everyone was talking about.

"Heard a thing or two about what?" someone asked from behind Claude. A moment later, Leonie sat down next to him.

"Our new professor," Hilda answered, digging into her peach sorbet, which was totally a breakfast food. Definitely. Her eggs and pancakes were left untouched. "Apparently, the Eagles roped him back to the monastery during their mission two weeks ago."

Leonie made a humming noise as she twirled a spoon between her fingers. "But if he was here two weeks ago, then why haven't we seen him anywhere? And speaking of the Eagles and not seeing people, have you seen Professor Byleth anywhere? There's something I need to ask him."

"If you're looking for my kid, then he left with his students early in the morning. He should be back in a couple of days."

The three of them looked up to see a large man with a grizzled face walking by.

"Yo, Captain Jeralt," Claude greeted with a grin. "Back from your mission with the Knights?"

"Mm." Jeralt nodded and gently ruffled Leonie's hair. "Got back a few hours ago. Was just in time to see the kid off."

"Ooh, then that should mean that our new teach is back too, right?" Claude asked.

Jeralt's brow furrowed in confusion for a second before he nodded in realization. "Ah, him. I was wondering why Lady Rhea assigned him into our ranks last-minute. Didn't think that he'd be a professor here."

"So the rumors are true then!" exclaimed Hilda. "We _are_ getting a new professor! I hope this one will let me relax a bit, unlike Professor Hanneman."

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Jeralt admitted with a light shrug. "Though I will say that his eye for strategy is damn good. We didn't lose a single life at Castle Gaspard, only getting a dozen or so injuries. I forgot how many steps the guy plans ahead of time. If his teaching abilities are anything like his skills in tactics, then I'd say that your House is well off."

Claude couldn't help but let out a low whistle. "Damn, that's impressive. Not including the mission you were just on, you've worked with him in the past, I'm assuming?"

"Just twice, and both of those times were years ago," Jeralt answered. A pensive look was on his face. "Never really planned to work with him; it just happened as he wandered into our camp out of nowhere and just started mingling with everyone. Next thing we knew, he was assisting us in whatever our job was at the time."

"So he and your son know each other?" Leonie asked, only for Jeralt to shake his head.

"Both times were when Byleth couldn't even walk on his own two feet, so I doubt that he'd remember Robin. Besides, Robin never met the kid when he was in camp and - " Jeralt suddenly stopped talking as he looked down the dining hall and out the door to the entrance hall. "Huh. Speak of the devil and he shall appear."

Following his gaze, Claude saw a short-haired woman dressed in sea-green and black walk by the door. Judging from the rope in her hands, she was clearly dragging something. That 'something' made itself known not two seconds after she disappeared from view, and a familiar white-haired man was seen being pulled along, neatly rolled up in a cocoon of rope.

Hilda's jaw hit the floor. "…That's… You're kidding, right? That…couldn't have been our new professor being dragged like a sack of flour, right?"

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

An hour later, Hilda's head fell onto her desk.

"He really is our professor…" she groaned. "Our professor was seen being dragged through the monastery while tied up in rope. That's so _embarrassing_…"

Claude couldn't help but laugh at Hilda's reaction. "It's not _that_ bad. I'm sure that there was a good reason for that." He then turned his head across the classroom and to the man in question, who was now free of the rope. "Right, Teach?"

"There is indeed a reason for that, my dear student, and it is indeed a good reason!" Robin immediately answered with a wide grin, pointing a finger at Claude.

Before anyone else could say anything, the woman that was seen with him added, "He was trying to run away from the monastery so I had to tie him up so that he wouldn't escape."

"But I thought you said that it was a good reason?" Ignatz asked in confusion.

"'Good' is a matter of perspective, Greenie, as is many things," Robin answered. "From my point of view, running away was a good thing since I get more freedom and less responsibilities and whatnot. In Shamir's view, on the other hand…" He pointed a thumb over at the aforementioned woman, who was sitting in a chair near Robin's desk. "…it was a bad thing since she was the one that had to track me down."

"And now I'm assigned by Lady Rhea to watch him so that he doesn't run off," Shamir sighed. "Again."

Robin nonchalantly shrugged. "Guilty." He then brought his hands together in a clapping motion. "Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's get more trivial things taken care of! Like introductions!"

"Wait a minute!" Lysithea yelled from a row behind Claude. "What happened to Professor Hanneman?"

"Who knows? He may or may not be physically able to teach anymore. All you need to know is that there's a _very _certain reason that I'm replacing him," was Robin's immediate reply. He said it with a serious face and a grim voice, causing some of the students to freeze up upon hearing his words.

"Professor Hanneman is unharmed and still resides in the monastery, but he will not be teaching one of the Houses," Shamir clarified. "Now that Robin has taken over as the new professor, Hanneman will be focusing on researching the Crests."

"Yup yup. Anyone else have questions? No? Good." Robin nodded to himself as he brought up a bundle of papers - most likely the student roster for the Golden Deers - and continued, "I don't know who any of you are, so I'm just gonna call out some names and if your name is called, please say something so that I can put a name to a face. Sound good?"

Every student in the class agreed in some way, either through a verbal confirmation and non-verbal.

"Great! So to start off…" Robin looked down at the sheet. "Claude!" He looked up and met the eye of the House Leader. "Oh hey! 'Sup, Claude!"

"Heya, Teach," Claude grinned. "Nice to see you again."

Hilda suddenly hit his arm. "You didn't tell me you knew him!" she hissed.

"I mean, you never asked. What you asked me was if I heard the rumors about Teach, not if I ever met him," he replied.

"Well said," Robin said. "Listen to your House Leader, kiddos. Technically correct is the best kind of correct."

"I feel like there's something wrong with that statement," Lysithea muttered under her breath.

"Continuing on!" Robin looked down at his paper again. "Lorenz, are you here?"

"I, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, am present, Professor," Lorenz smoothly replied.

"Your name is an absolute mouthful to say, Renz," Robin remarked. "Nice rose, by the way."

Lorenz looked to be stuck between feeling offended at the comment about his name or prideful about his accessory.

"Next up is Raphael - holy son of a mother, you're big."

This continued on for a while. The newly-instated professor would call out names, the student of said name would reply, and a witty or cheeky comment would come from Robin about their names or appearance. When he was finished, Robin tossed the roster over his shoulder where it vanished a burst of flame before gravity took hold of it.

"Okay!" Robin smiled and dusted his hands of the embers that faded in his hands. "Now that I know your faces and names better, pack your crap. Actually, on second thought, don't. We're headed to the training grounds. Meet you brats there!"

Before any of the students had the chance to say anything, Robin snapped his fingers and vanished in a flash of purple lightning.

"Huh. That's a flashy way of warping," Claude said.

"That's a really _advanced_ technique, Claude," Lysithea said as she got out of her chair. "Spellcasters tend to not touch the Warp and Rescue spells there are so many things that can go wrong. If you mess up, you can end up bringing one half of a body instead of the full body, or end up in the middle of nowhere. There are even more reasons why there are so few practitioners of those spells."

"Oooh~ That's really informative!" Claude laughed as he playfully ruffled the younger girl's hair. His hand was batted away in a second.

"A-Anyway, what he most likely did was modify the already-complex seal array of Warp spells," Lysithea explained as her cheeks turned red from both irritation and embarrassment. "You don't just _modify_ spells that manipulate space, and you _especially_ don't use those spells on yourself. There's a good chance that our new professor just killed himself just now."

"Whaaaat?!" Ignatz looked and sounded horrified. "Was what he did really that dangerous?"

Claude laughed again as he walked out of the Golden Deer's classroom and towards the training grounds.

"As expected of our little magician. You know a lot of things!" he said with a wide grin. "Call it a hunch, but I've a feeling that Teach isn't the kind of guy that'd kill himself like that."

This statement was quickly proven to be true once the Deers arrived at the training grounds. A few dummies in armor were already set up and there was a crate of wooden weapons next to Robin, who was standing in the center of the arena floor while twirling a foreign dagger in his hands.

"Lesson One of Many that I will be teaching you all…" Robin nudged the crate by his feet as he stowed his dagger behind his waist. "…is how to handle weapons. Or practical arms training, which is something that Claude recommended I do since Hanneman was more focused on theory and books. Not a bad thing, but there are some things that you can't learn from studies alone. Which brings us here to the training grounds."

There was a pompous scoff from Lorenz. "Most of us already know how to wield weapons, Professor, as it was taught to us at an early age. I cannot say the same for those not from a noble lineage, but nevertheless, we all know how to use one."

Claude didn't miss the way that Robin's eyes flashed as he looked at Lorenz.

"Do you now?" Robin drawled. "Okay then, Ren. Perhaps you'd like to be my assistant in today's demonstration? It's a very simple task, I assure you."

_'Oh, this can't be good,'_ Claude thought to himself.

He was ninety-nine-percent sure that the 'demonstration' was going to be a hard, if not a bit painful, lesson for his fellow classmate. If her facial expression was anything to go by, Leonie was thinking the same thing.

Lorenz, on the other hand, confidently walked up and grabbed a wooden spear from the box. The look on his face was a carbon copy of the one he had a couple of months ago during the mock battle. A mock battle that had him be the first one to be knocked unconscious by Professor Byleth's class, no less.

"A spear? Is that your preferred weapon?" Robin asked, staring at the spear in Lorenz's hands.

"Why, of course," Lorenz responded. "It is what I was taught, after all."

With a single nod, Robin reached for the box and pulled out a quiver of rubber-tipped arrows. Grabbing one of the projectiles, he twirled it between his fingers before hurling it at Lorenz without so much as a warning.

Having been caught by surprise, Lorenz's reaction was delayed by a second and wound up getting hit in the center of the forehead.

"And now, you're dead~" Robin sang.

"I hardly believe that a rubber arrow can kill someone, Professor," Lorenz said with a frown.

"Were it a real arrow, you'd be dead. Or bleeding. Besides…" Robin's lips curled into a smirk. "Are you sure about that?"

Pulling out another arrow, he threw it at one of the training dummies. The arrow moved even faster than the one that was thrown at Lorenz and struck the armor in the center of its chestplate. To everyone's shock and surprise, sans one Shamir, who looked quite bored at the situation, the arrow didn't stop. Instead, it pierced through the dummy completely before lodging itself in one of the training ground pillars.

"_'Rubber arrows can't kill anyone, Professor.' 'This will be nothing more than a joke, Professor,"_" Robin mockingly said. "I ask you again: are you sure about that?"

Claude walked up to inspect the thrown arrow. It looked like the standard ones that he saw everywhere, yet this one was embedded up to the fletchings. He tried pulling it out but it refused to budge.

"O-Oi, Teach…" Claude shakily called out as he looked over at Robin. "What was that?"

"Magic, my dear student, and it is something that shall be a lesson further down the line," Robin said. "Though I suppose this is a lesson in itself: don't underestimate your opponent." He then turned his attention back over to Lorenz. "Now then, let's continue. And don't worry, I won't be throwing these to kill you. They'll still hurt though."

To his credit, Lorenz didn't back down. He adjusted his posture and footing in preparation as Robin reached inside the quiver.

"Careful now. You won't be able to move from that spot," Robin playfully warned.

Every set of eyes looked down at Lorenz's feet. Sure enough, a layer of ice had formed from the ground and up to surround his feet in a ring, preventing him from moving more than a single step in any direction. When the students looked back at their professor, he was sporting a maniacal grin.

"Lessons on dodging will come next time," Robin informed them as he reeled his arm back. "Today, you better learn how to block arrows with your choice of weapon lest you earn some painful bruises!"

Just like before, Robin threw the arrow at Lorenz. Unlike before, the student was ready for it and quickly swung his spear to deflect the projectile. Then a second. And a third.

After the fourth arrow, Lorenz drawled, "This is getting a little easy, Professor."

Robin tilted his head and smiled. "Is it now? If you want this to be more difficult, consider your wish granted."

Without further ado, Robin kicked the box of weapons into the air. To the entire House's surprise, not a single training weapon fell to the ground. Instead, they all hovered in the air around Robin, and only the box became a victim of gravity.

"Wha - How?!" Lysithea choked out.

"Magic, you copycat of hair color," Robin replied, jabbing a finger in the girl's direction. "It's actually a lot easier than you'd think and costs very little mana. It _does_ require a crap-ton of control though. I'll teach you it later if you'd like. Only negative side to this is that it won't work on heavier things. Like metal swords. It'd be _really_ nice if it did though. A rain of swords and spears and axes."

Said girl nodded twice in satisfaction before she frowned. "Wait. Copycat?"

"Yup yup." Robin nodded as he pointed at his head. "You have white hair, I have white hair, but I'm older than you, hence you copied me. Makes sense, no?"

"…That…I guess if you put it that way…" Claude muttered.

Lysithea's mouth opened and closed like a fish before she screamed, "That doesn't make any sense!"

"Sure it does!" Robin childishly countered before turning to Lorenz. The floating weapons also followed suit as they slowly angled themselves to point at the student. "Ready to begin?"

Unsurprisingly, Lorenz didn't look anywhere near as confident as he did a few moments ago. With his eyes firmly fixated on the wooden arsenal, he opened his mouth to reply when Robin beat him to it.

"Too late!" he gleefully yelled, and a sword shot out of the sky.

Lorenz was just barely fast enough to deflect the sword before an axe began flying towards his face. Followed by a spear. Then three arrows. Then another sword.

Due to some miraculous luck, the axe missed Lorenz's head by a hair's breadth. The spear, on the other hand, hit his thigh, causing him to stumble and collapse onto one knee. The arrows quickly followed, two of them hitting his chest and one in the shoulder.

And then the sword hit him between the eyes.

"Oooh!" Robin winced as Lorenz crumpled to the floor. "Didn't think I'd hit him there. My aim's still pretty shabby, huh."

"Is…is he dead?" Marianne fearfully asked.

"Naah, I doubt it," Robin said, walking over to Lorenz. Grabbing the sword that downed him, he started poking the student's cheek. "Yo, you dead? Alive? Somewhere in between? Cause if it's that last one, good luck escaping that pit."

There was no response.

"Hmm. Pretty sure he's not dead. Really hope he's not. Gonna look bad on me if I killed a student during the first day of training, but then again, he did kinda ask for it…" Robin murmured. "Well, time for some drastic measures."

Raising a finger, he created a ball of lightning.

The realization about what he was about to do suddenly hit Claude.

"Wait a sec, Teach!" Claude quickly called out. "Why not just check for a pulse?"

"Pulse?" Robin looked at him with a furrowed brow. "Why would I do that when I know how my spells work?" As if to prove his point, a wave of energy was released from the lightning ball above Robin's finger. A _pulse_ of energy, to be exact.

"He means the heartbeat," Shamir said in a tired voice. "No need for a jumpstart if he's not even dead."

"Uggghh…fine," Robin conceded. The lightning ball vanished from his fingertips and he stood up. "Friggin' killjoys."

"You're not going to check on Lorenz?" Hilda bewilderedly asked.

Robin looked at her with a face that clearly said _'Of course not'_.

"I didn't strike him with nearly enough force to seriously harm him," Robin clarified. "Even so, a solid thing of wood is still a solid thing of wood, and if a solid thing of wood hits you square between your eyes, it's going to _hurt_. A _lot_. Especially at the speed that I flung it at.

"That being said, who's next?" A chilling and slightly sadistic grin appeared on his face. "Today's training has only started, y'know? Lunchtime is still a ways away."

For the next hour, the only two things that could be heard from the training grounds were the terrified and anguished screams of students accompanied by the roaring laughter that sounded eerily similar to a certain heroic golden king of old.

_**. . .**_

_**. . .**_

Due to his upbringing as a mercenary, beds were considered a luxury for Byleth. The number of times that he'd get to rest in one were far and few in between, and most of his nights were spent either on old sleeping bags on the ground or in trees. Despite what many would believe, sleeping in a tree was a lot harder than one would expect as a single mishap would send him falling towards the ground for a rude and abrupt awakening.

And the bugs. He couldn't forget the bugs. He'd usually wake up to find a few of them on his person and some even went inside his clothes.

Beds were definitely a luxury. As such, Byleth cherished his bed at Garreg Mach Monastery. His own, personal bed. One that no one else would use.

Despite the protests of his body to stay within the soft and warm confines of his blanket, Byleth got up and stretched. A few bones clicked and his muscles burned a little, but all of that was normal to him after a skirmish.

What wasn't normal was the set of clothes on his desk that definitely wasn't there the night before. It looked like the standard uniform that the students wore, but the colors were different. Instead of the dull gold accents, his was grey. There was also a cape-slash-cloak that he could don alongside a hat that shared the same color scheme.

He liked the hat.

After a quick wash, Byleth put on the uniform (and the hat. Couldn't forget the hat) and left his room.

The first thing he saw was a tired Ignatz and Raphael pass by. Robin was pushing his class hard, it would seem.

He found further evidence of this when he arrived at the dining hall for breakfast. Every student of the Golden Deers, minus one Claude, were sitting together, and none of them were talking. They were simply sitting in silence as they ate, and Byleth had to wonder what Robin did to make them all so exhausted. Not even Hilda, the brightest one of the group, seemed to have any energy.

Once he grabbed his breakfast, he spotted an open seat by Edelgard and Dorothea.

"Morning, Professor," Dorothea said with a smile. Her eyes roamed his body and she added, "I like the new look!"

"Good morning," Byleth returned as he took a seat. He then glanced over at the Deers. "Do you know what happened to them?"

"Mm… I'm not entirely sure," Dorothea hummed. "I haven't had the chance to ask them yet, but from what I managed to gather, they had a really tough training exercise while we were gone."

"I must admit that I'm curious what Professor Robin had them do in order to tire them so," Edelgard muttered. "And to think that I originally thought him to be nothing more than an enigma."

Byleth nodded and made a mental note to share some notes with Robin the next time he saw him. "I see."

Breakfast passed relatively quickly after that. The three of them idly talked about topics that came to their minds, such as their mission that they recently returned from. Dorothea was quite grateful that the number of stragglers were so few while also expressing her worry over Ashe. The boy from the Blue Lion's House had requested to come along with them and was devastated upon confronting Lord Lonato.

When they were finished eating, they began to make their way to the Black Eagles' classroom when one of the monastery knights approached them. The knight informed Byleth that Lady Rhea wished to speak with him, and with that, Byleth walked across the grounds and towards the archbishop's audience chamber.

"Uwaahh~ It's the professor for Class Confusing."

He was immediately greeted by the strange man that he and his students apprehended about a month ago. Said strange man lazily waved a hand in his direction.

"How you doing?"

"I'm doing well," Byleth said as he looked around. Rhea, Seteth, Manuela, Catherine, Alois, his father, and a woman with short hair were present. Turning his attention to the archbishop, he bent his upper body in a bow. "Lady Rhea."

Rhea warmly smiled at him. "I am glad that you're well. How are your students?"

"They're recovering," he replied. "Nothing that a few days of rest won't be able to heal."

"Aah, sorry 'bout that. The stragglers, I mean," Robin said as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Didn't think that Lonato would friggin' bolt the moment we approached the castle. I wanted to chase after him and the rest of his guards, something that would've taken less than a day, but the rest of the Seiros Knights wouldn't stop whining about going home. Babies, the lot of them."

"Oho?" Catherine hummed and shifted her weight onto one leg. "Robin, I didn't think you were such a thrill-seeker. You like fights that much? I'll go a few rounds with you if you want."

Robin quickly shook both of his hands in front of him in panicked motion. "No no no, nothing like that. I just meant that we could've finished the entirety of our job up with just another day of being out in the field. Not to mention, a round with you? I'm very anti-death and pro-me-not-dying, so I'll have to decline."

"Ahahahaha! It's only a spar, Robin. I'm not gonna kill you or anything!" Catherine laughed.

"_'Only a spar,'_ you say…" Robin shook his head. "If I believe that, I'll go in expecting a spar and come out with a can of whoop-ass being opened on me. I like my ass not getting kicked, thank you very much."

"If we could get back on track…" Seteth sternly said, giving Robin and Catherine a cross look.

"Sorry sorry." "My bad."

Neither of them sounded too apologetic, though Catherine had a little bit of remorse in her voice. Robin had none. Even so, they gave their attention to Rhea, who pulled out a scroll from the confines of her robe.

"With Catherine's help, Professor Byleth and his class found this letter on the body of Lord Lonato," Rhea started, handing the letter over to Jeralt to read. "Its contents have not been released to the public and I would ask that it remains within this room."

Jeralt read the letter for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow in disbelief. "An assassination?"

"So it would seem," Rhea sadly said as the letter was passed over to Robin to read.

"I didn't believe it at first - thought my eyes were playing tricks on me," Catherine admitted. "But then the hard proof was right there, and - "

"I don't think so," Robin suddenly said.

All heads turned to Robin. He was still reading the letter, but his eyes were narrowed as if he was trying to find and read a really fine print. Even though everyone was looking at him, he remained silent after his initial outburst.

"What do you mean?" Catherine asked.

"…I mean that I don't think this is really an assassination," Robin said, holding the letter out in front of him. "Read it carefully."

Seteth took the letter out of Robin's hands. No one said a word as they let him concentrate, and Byleth thought back to the short conversation he had with Edelgard during their way back to the monastery. She thought that the assassination plot was to serve as a distraction for something else, and it was a sentiment that he agreed with. He had no facts to go on, but his gut told him otherwise.

As it would happen, he and Edelgard weren't the only ones that thought the assassination plans to be a diversion.

After almost a full minute of silence, Seteth's eyes started to widen.

"You see? Doesn't really seem like an assassination plot, does it?" Robin rhetorically asked.

"Indeed," Seteth nodded. "It is much too deliberate."

"Deliberate?" Alois repeated. "I got that the letter is to the point and direct, but isn't that how they work? Complicated plans are best when explained in person."

"You're correct, but that is not what I mean," Seteth said as he massaged his brow. "I honestly can't believe that I didn't see it earlier."

The letter was now in Shamir's possession. Catherine was peering over her shoulder to read it as well, and a few seconds later, Shamir nodded.

"It's _too_ direct," she said. "I've dealt with assassinations back when I was still operating as a mercenary. I only got contracts like these a handful of times, and for each and every one of them, codewords would be used under the guise of a regular, nondescript letter. The rest of my contracts would be told either through a middle-man or from the contractor themselves."

"In other words, whoever gave this letter to Lord Lonato _wanted_ us to find it," Manuela sadly said. "How vile. Using a man's life as nothing but bait for your own wants."

"Speaking of wants, what _do_ they want?" Robin asked.

With a minute frown, Byleth looked over at Rhea. "Is there anything in this monastery that is of value?"

"The monastery houses a great many things, Professor. To name them all would take far too much time, and time is something that we cannot afford to spare," Rhea answered.

"Then what about places that hold things that you wouldn't be able to find elsewhere?" Byleth asked.

"You think that they plan on stealing something from the monastery," Hanneman realized. "That thought does have merit. With the plot of an assassination in the air, most of the guards would be on the archbishop and the Rite, so much of the monastery's security would be quite lax."

"…I see," Rhea said. "Very well. Then the Houses will all have the same assignment this month."

At this, Seteth took a step forward, drawing everyone's attention. "As you all know, the Rite of Rebirth is in but a few days," he started. "Although we have come to an agreement that the assassination plans are nothing more than a distraction, a threat is still a threat. As such, the Knights of Seiros will be guarding Lady Rhea. Your assignment is to assist the Knights in defending the monastery where they are spread too thin."

"Uhh, I'm pretty sure that having our students spread throughout the monastery grounds won't do much," Robin said. "This place is _huge_, and you more or less implied that there are a bunch of places that the probable-assassins might go. There's no feasible way for us to safeguard every single potential spot."

Rhea softly smiled. "You're a smart man, Robin. I'm sure that you'll be able to figure something out."

There was something to be said at how miffed Robin looked at that moment. His face scrunched up as if he bit into something sour, his eyes widened in what seemed to be mild surprise, and an angry tick mark appeared on his forehead. Byleth didn't think that it was humanly possible to show three completely different emotions at the same time, and here he was getting proved wrong by the enigma that he and Edelgard found.

"I swear there's some sort of curse on me or something," Robin grumbled. "How is that multiple people say the exact same…"

Robin's voice grew quieter with each word until Byleth was no longer able to hear him. Then he shook his head and brought his hands together in a clapping motion.

"Shall we start preparing, Maneula, Byleth?" Robin asked, jabbing his thumb at the door's direction. "Best get started sooner than later."

"My my, I didn't think you were such a hard worker," Manuela foxily said.

"Why, thank you!" "He's really not."

Robin and Shamir replied simultaneously to Manuela's statement, the former looking at the latter with a pained expression.

"Oh, Shamir, why must you harm me so?" Robin asked, clutching his heart in an exaggerated motion. "My heart weeps from your cold words."

With a tired sigh and a shake of her head, Shamir turned to Rhea. "For how long much longer will I have to babysit this person?"

"And thus, I have been demoted to being referred to as nothing more than_ "this person"_. Woe is me. Or…woe is I. I honestly don't know which is which," Robin said.

Rhea gently laughed from behind her hand at Robin's antics and Shamir's I'm-so-done-with-this expression.

"Do you not enjoy his company, Shamir?" Rhea asked. "The two of you are old friends, after all."

"Yeah, Shamir, do you not enjoy my company?" Robin repeated with a smug grin. "After everything we've been through?"

"This guy has no care for the phrase_ 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned,'_ does he?" Jeralt smirked.

"I even took an arrow for you!" Robin continued on as if he was acting in an opera. "Does that mean nothing?"

"An arrow?" Manuela gasped. "My my, isn't that romantic?"

Even Byleth raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. His initial impression of the man was not one of a self-sacrificing nature. Perhaps there was more to Robin than he originally thought.

"It was a _rubber-tipped_ arrow that _I_ shot during _training_," Shamir clarified. "It just happened to bounce at an awkward angle and was nowhere close to hitting me."

Then again, perhaps Byleth's original thoughts were not wrong.

With a shrug and a grin, Robin extended a hand as if to make a point. "Still took a hit from an arrow that was headed in your direction."

Rather than answering, Shamir turned to Catherine with a _'Do you see what I have to deal with?'_ face. Catherine's reply was to laugh and place a hand on her shoulder.

"I sympathize with your plight, Shamir, and I do not envy your position " Seteth said with a shake of his head. Byleth felt the same. "However, you are the best choice to keep an eye on Robin."

"I'd like to help you out, but I've got my own tasks from Lady Rhea," Catherine added. "Maybe I can cover for you if I find the time."

Figuring that was the best response that she would get, Shamir sighed again, muttering something under her breath that was not of the Fódlan language.

"Now then, shall we start preparing?" Robin asked again as he began walking towards the door. "We have plans to craft, places to visit, food to eat, and students to tortu- I mean, instruct. Yeah, instruct."

Which reminded Byleth…

"Robin," he called out. "May I ask you something?"

"You just did but I shall allow another question," Robin returned with a grin. "How can this one be of assistance, fellow associate?"

Byleth waited until he, Robin, Manuela, and Shamir were out of the audience chamber before speaking.

"What sort of exercise did you give your students the past couple of days?" he asked. "They looked exhausted, and I would like to give my own students the same training."

"Ohoo~" Robin manically grinned. "Are you sure about this? Your students may come to hate it. And you. Maybe."

"No, they'll most _definitely_ hate it," Shamir corrected him as she shook her head. "Hate it as in to the point that they openly curse your name the entire time and the morning after."

There was a small laugh from Manuela. "Is that the reason why some students have been spreading rumors about a demon's torture chamber having replaced our training grounds during the morning hours? Even _I've _heard some screaming sounds as of yesterday, and that's an area where I seldom visit."

Robin devilishly grinned at her. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, madam." Turning his attention back to Byleth, he asked him, "Having heard Shamir and Manuela, do you still want to subject your class to what most definitely is not a…_demon's torture chamber_, I believe it's been called?"

"It'll build character and help them grow," Byleth said matter-of-factly. "If they go through trials and hardships now, they'll have a much higher chance of surviving out there."

"I see, I see. What about you, Manuela?" Robin asked, turning his head to face her. "Would you and your class like to participate in my personal training?"

The monastery's head nurse was silent for a few seconds as she thought about the offer. Finally, she shrugged.

"I don't see why not," she said. "It'll be a good chance for the Houses to work together, especially since we were all assigned the same task for this month."

"Heh. Heh heh heh."

The grin on Robin's lips grew wider as he began to chuckle. The chuckle quickly became full-blown laughter, one that would not be uncommon in a stereotypical villain. It sounded arrogant yet confident, and Byleth was even able to hear a trace of sadism in it.

"Professor? Are you…alright?" Manuela hesitantly asked, only for Robin to lazily wave a hand in her direction.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. It's just… Oh, how I pity your students," Robin gleefully said as his laughter died down. "Just saying, if they come to dislike the two of you…" He pointed a finger at Byleth and Manuela. "…you can't come complaining to me. I gave a pretty fair warning, so that's that."

"I give you my word that I will not blame you for any repercussions that your training will have, and that I take full responsibility for what may happen to them," Byleth vowed.

"As do I, but I'm not repeating everything that Professor Byleth said," Manuela agreed. With a bit of pride in her voice, she added, "And I may be a healer, but I assure you that I'm no slouch as a teacher as well. I think you'd be hard-pressed to trouble my students."

Robin gleefully laughed again and added a light spring to his steps, and Byleth had to appreciate the man's enthusiasm for teaching. He must truly love it for him to find such joy in it, after all.

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

**Trying to find a balance between Robin's PoV and Byleth's PoV. I don't want too much of one or the other. Robin's a much easier character to write given the personality I've given him while Byleth is **_**the**_ **main character of **_**Three Houses**_**, so…yeah. The two of them are more or less going to be the main viewpoints of this story, though I do plan on delving into the viewpoints of some of the students and faculty members.**

**Speaking of which, and like I said in the previous ending author's notes, I will be alternating between events that happen both within the monastery and out of it. I'll also try and get as many of the unique student-NPC interactions involved as possible, even if they are "off-screen" like Ashe and Lonato in this chapter.**

**Petra and Shamir best girls. They, along with Caspar and Hilda, are my Crit-Gods/Goddesses.**

* * *

**Many thanks to all the follows, favorites, reviews, and reads. Means a lot.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I've always liked Petra ever since her first reveal. My runs in Hard Mode made me _really_ like her. My Maddening Playthrough is making me LOVE her.**

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

High above the ground in one of Garreg Mach Monastery's rooms, three people were huddled over a map. Multiple circles and crosses were drawn at certain areas of the monastery's layout, and a new circle was being drawn by a far tower.

Suddenly, the door to the room was kicked open and a man proudly strode in with a smug smile on his face.

"How you doing, you losers?" the man grinned, spreading his arms out in front of him.

"Robin." Shamir narrowed her eyes at him as she deftly twirled a pen in her fingers. Her irritation was definitely not because her circle, which was going to be perfectly drawn, was now ruined. "You were supposed to be here an hour ago."

"You kept two ladies waiting on you, Professor. That's not very gentleman-like of you," Manuela slyly added.

Robin nonchalantly shrugged as he sat down next to Byleth.

"We never agreed to meet here right after breakfast," he said. "All you said, Shamir, was to meet here in the war room at our earliest convenience. Or…something along those lines. So technically, I'm not late at all!"

"You - "

"Besides, I'd like to think that I'm never late, nor am I ever early. I arrive precisely when I mean to."

"I have a feeling that you didn't come up with that," Shamir said with a sigh. "It sounds a little too specific for the situation."

"Correct! I got it from a wizard," Robin grinned. "But that's neither here nor there. The reason as to why I was _"late" _\- " He dramatically put up air quotes at Shamir's expense. " - was because I was talking to Seteth. And by 'talking', I mean normal-slash-regular talking, and definitely not bothering and pestering him to the point that he finally divulges a bit of info that he was purposely keeping back because he felt like being an ass. Seriously, that guy is _super_ easy to rile up. Just call him an immortal vampire and he gets all defensive. It's hilarious!"

Byleth noted that Robin was very expressive with his body language as he talked. Whenever Robin would refer to himself, he'd point at his chest with his entire hand, and whenever he'd refer to someone else, like Shamir, he'd wave his hand in their direction. Whenever he would emphasize a word, he would flick all of his fingers out or roll his wrists.

Perhaps Byleth would do well to try and copy his fellow professor. He often overheard that he was too stoic most of the time.

"Why'd you call him a vampire?" Manuela asked.

"Because that guy doesn't seem to age at all. He looks the same as he did when I was Lysithea's height, and that was years ago! What's that if not a vampire?" Robin rhetorically and jokingly asked, rolling his wrist as if to make a physical point. "Anyhoo! The immortal vampire with green hair said something about a _coffin_. Shamir, Manuela, the two of you have been here for a much longer time than me and Byleth, so any ideas as to where a coffin might be?"

"Coffin…coffin…" Manuela hummed and tap her finger on her lips. "We have a burial site just outside this building, and other than that, there's the Holy Mausoleum - oh."

"The tomb of Seiros," Shamir cursed. "Out of everything here in the monastery, the remains are probably one of the most sacred." She brought up a hand and rubbed her temples. "How did we not think of that before?"

"But it's sealed with ancient magic. The only one that knows how to open it would be Lady Rhea," Manuela said.

"Just because she's the only one that knows how to doesn't mean that there aren't other ways of opening seals," Robin reasoned with a shrug. "Seals are just magical locks. And in the same manner that people can pick locks, there are people that can magically pick seals."

"And are you one of those people?" Manuela asked.

Robin gave her another shrug and tilted his chair backward. "I'd like to think that I'm pretty good with magic and spells, so…yeah. Given enough time, I think I'd be able to crack any seal."

"So the intruders are planning something similar, but there's no guarantee that the mausoleum is the only place that they'll attack," Byleth said, drawing a circle on the mausoleum on the map. "We should split into three groups. Group A will have the bulk of our students and will be stationed at the mausoleum. Groups B and C will patrol separate routes around the monastery."

"Mixture of all three Houses in a group, right?" Robin guessed with a lazy wave of his hand.

"Correct." Byleth gave him a nod. "I haven't decided which students will be in which groups yet, but they _will_ have students from every House. This way, all three groups will be familiar with at least one or two students in the others, and everyone will know each others' stations. If reinforcements are needed, then the group that needs help can send one of their members to any of the groups as they'll know their locations."

"And what of us?" Manuela asked, gesturing at him, Shamir, Robin, and herself. "Will there be one professor per group?"

Byleth was silent as he pondered her question. It would make sense to have one professor per group. At the same time, there were four of them present in the room, and Manuela was a was the monastery's best healer. Should anyone be seriously injured, whether it be a student or professor, having Manuela at the infirmary would be the best option for everyone.

Strangely enough, Robin seemed to have the same mindset as him. Perhaps he also had a mind for strategy?

"Nah, I don't think that'll be necessary," Robin said. "The House Leaders are more than capable of leading a group on their own, even if the group consists of students of other Houses. Manuela, I say you should be at the infirmary in case anyone gets hurt, whether they be our students or the Knights of Seiros. Byleth here can lead a group that has more Eagles than not. The other two groups can have an even-ish split between the Lions and Deers, and I can head that. The last group - "

"The last group can be lead by me," Shamir cut in.

Robin raised a brow at her. "Don't you have to be with the Knights, dear Lady Knight of Seiros?"

"They have Seteth, Hanneman, and _Catherine_," Shamir countered. The corner of her lips quirked up into a smirk at Catherine's name. "I pity anyone who tries to harm Lady Rhea with her nearby."

"That is true. She goes above and beyond when things involve the archbishop," Manuela gently laughed.

"Then it's settled. Professor Manuela stays in the infirmary with the healers while Professor Robin, Shamir, and I lead the three aforementioned groups," Byleth concluded before he turned to Robin. "I'll make a list of the student groups by the hour's end. Would you mind looking over it when I'm done?"

"Sure thing," Robin said with a shrug and got out of his seat. "So, we're done here, right? That was a pretty short meeting, if I say so myself."

"You were only here for the last five minutes, Professor," Manuela sighed with a shake of her head. "The rest of us have been here for over an hour."

"That's still relatively short compared to some other meetings. Now, if there's nothing else…" Robin pointed at the door as he made his way towards it.

"Actually, there's something that came up. A rumor, to be exact," Shamir said before Robin could leave the room. "A few students and other members of the monastery have reported a dark figure roaming the monastery at night. Face is a skull, has glowing red eyes, and wields a giant scythe."

"Spooky," Robin muttered. "Should we make rounds tonight? Check the halls for this walking skeleton?"

"That would be ideal," Byleth replied. "We can start once the students all go to bed. There's no need to startle anyone or cause an uproar."

_**. . .**_

Early on in life, Lysithea learned that knowledge was power. In most cases, this was correct, but she soon learned that knowledge was only the basis for it. _Power_ was power, and knowledge only became power if it was applied properly. It was the reason why she was called a prodigy, much to her chagrin. Those that called her a prodigy didn't understand the amount of effort and the countless hours that she put in to learn the subjects.

This was also one of the reasons why she was in Golden Deers' classroom on the weekend while almost every other student of the monastery was frolicking about on their day off. Across her table, leaning back against his chair, was her professor. She managed to track him down after lunch and reminded him that he said that he'd teach her to keep items afloat in midair. He agreed, but instead of explaining how he kept the wooden weapons afloat right away, he decided to teach her from the start about mana.

"Mana is…" Professor Robin fiddled with his hands, aimlessly twirling his wrists in front of him. "It's _free_. Unformed, moldable, like clay. It's the base in which every spell is derived from. There are some exceptions here and there, but I'll get into those later as they can be pretty dangerous if the user mishandles mana.

"The first thing you need to be able to do is manipulate mana before anything else. To bend it to your will. You already do a bit of this when you cast your standard spells, which is what those overly-complicated seal arrays are for. They're essentially useless and detrimental to you if you can learn to utilize mana properly, and you can forego it completely later on."

A small frown formed on Lysithea's lips. The arrays were what allowed her to cast spells. They were both a set of instructions and a tool that every caster used. The mana used from creating the array and the glyphs were what ignited the array itself, and the arrangement of the glyphs were what created the type of spell. So his statement about foregoing seal arrays contradicted what she previously learned.

"What do you mean?" she asked him.

"Well, let's take a look at the array, shall we?" Robin suggested. With a wave of his hand, he brought up a spell array. "Do you recognize this?"

She took a few seconds to look at the array.

"That's for a Thunder, isn't it? I recognize those glyphs," she answered, pointing at the strange characters on the outer edge of the magic circle.

A pleasant smile rose to Robin's face. "Correct! And good eye on catching the glyphs!"

Lysithea beamed at the praise.

"Now normally, when you cast a spell using the seal array, you go through a series of steps that I'll skip over since they're not that important. All you really need to know is that the mana that's used will go in a clockwise motion starting from the topmost rune in a complete circle. Once that's done, the mana spreads throughout the entire array and the spell is cast," Robin explained, tracing the motion with his finger. "If anything is done incorrectly in this process, like an uneven spread of mana or not enough mana is used, the entire sequence is broken and your spell fails. I'm sure you know this already.

"Mana, on the other hand, doesn't do this. As I said before, it's more "free", in a sense. If you cast a spell with mana without an array, you can…_change_ its composition, or it's 'element', while casting. So, instead of doing this…" He created a seal array in less than a second and cast a low-powered Thunder at a suit of armor in the corner of the room. "…you can do something like this."

He pointed a finger at the now-battered suit of armor and shot a ball of fire wreathed in lightning at it without any visible preparation. The fireball crashed against the helmet, melting the metal, and traces of lightning arced down the metal armor, tearing and cracking the metal wherever it touched.

"Woah…" Lysithea quietly gasped.

Then the wooden dummy beneath the armor caught flame.

"Oh shit!" Robin frantically waved a hand and encased the dummy in a block of ice, extinguishing the flame immediately. "Moving on…" He continued, acting as if nothing had happened. "Before we get onto sealless spells, which is actually kind of common amongst experienced mages, you'll have to learn the glyphs in the arrays. Or runes, as I like to call them since it's a bit more accurate," Robin continued, pointing at the first Thunder array that he procured. "Do you know what each of the runes-slash-glyphs for Thunder are called?"

Her face soured. "…No," she reluctantly admitted. "None of the texts or research papers talk about the runes themselves, only the arrangements and what the end result. Not even in the library."

Robin made a funny face as his head tilted to the side. "That's…strange. I know that it's not the most common subject, but I figured that some would have at least been in the monastery's library would have held at least one or two… Oh well. No matter. I can teach you the basics now." With a glowing fingertip, he drew three separate runes in the air - the same runes in the Thunder seal array. "Going from left to right - er…from _your_ left to right, these runes are called 'Rai', 'Ful', and 'Gos'."

"Rai, Ful, Gos," Lysithea repeated to herself, jotting down the runes and pronunciations in her notes.

"Mhmm. Rai and Ful are runes associated with the lightning element and Gos is associated with every element you can see in the world and nature, such as water, wind, fire, ice, and earth. So I guess it's classified as a nature-based rune. Light and Dark-slash-Black magic, however, are not associated with the nature-element, and they have their own set of runes. Why that is, I don't know. Day and night is part of nature and with it comes light and dark, but hey, magic is magical.

"Anyhoo, going back to Rai, Ful, and Gos!" Robin pointed at the outer edge of the _Thunder_ seal array where the runes were located. "You can see that despite there being a total number of nine runes in the array, it's just the Rai, Ful, and Gos runes repeated three times in that order. The composition of spell is simple if you look at it that way, which is why Thunder is one of the easiest spells to learn as you're only "learning" three runes compared to something like…Bolganone, which has seven different runes arranged into a set of forty, and they're not in a repeated arrangement like how Thunder is. Absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, just _look_ at this thing."

With another wave of his hand, he brought up another seal array, and Lysithea immediately noticed the difference between the new array and Thunder's. Just as Robin said, Bolganone's runes were far more complicated and seemed to be randomly arranged unlike Thunder's easy-to-spot pattern.

"General rule of thumb: more runes equal stronger spells. With this in mind, all you _really_ need to cast spells are the knowledge of the runes and the amount of mana required for it," Robin continued, flicking his wrist and getting rid of the Bolganone array. "So, to cast a spell, you can go through the motions of creating the spell's array while only writing the runes. Like this."

Raising his arm to the side, Robin conjured the Rai, Ful, and Gos runes in the air. They glowed brilliantly for a fraction of a second before a bolt of sapphire lightning arced through the air and crashed against the suit of armor, shattering the ice encasing it. It was a wonder that it was still upright at this point.

"This is going to be a little difficult to do as you're so used to using arrays, but once you get it down, it'll make your spell-casting life a _lot_ more efficient. And later, once you learn what each of the runes to on their own, you can do it without any visible preparation, as I showed you before. The less steps you have, the more flexible your spells will be. You can shoot lightning straight across, have it arc overhead, or even have it split into multiple branches for more of an area-of-effect sort of deal."

"I see. But if Rai and Ful both mean lightning, why are they different?" she asked him. "Wouldn't it make sense for there to only be one rune for it?"

"I dunno. Why are there multiple words for 'happy'?" Robin asked in return. "There's 'joy', 'glee', 'cheerful', 'merry', 'jolly', and a lot more that I'm too lazy to list, but you get the point, right?"

"Oh. So they just stand for different expressions of lightning? Or variations?"

"Eh. More or less."

Lysithea hummed in acknowledgment and wrote it down into her notes. Then something occurred to her.

"Professor? Why is it that your spells aren't casting?" Lysithea curiously asked, pointing at the Thunder seal array. To her knowledge, it was impossible to stall the activation of a spell once the array was up. Either the sufficient amount of mana was sent into the array to cast the spell or it would vanish altogether within a couple of seconds. Professor Robin's was up from the beginning of the lesson. "How are you just holding the arrays there?"

"Oh, these? They're not _really_ spell arrays; they're projections, not unlike my magical writing-in-the-air thing I did like…a minute or two ago," Robin grinned. "How to make projections? That'll be a lesson once you learn how to manipulate mana, which is after casting spells without runes, which comes after casting spells without the array. I've seen Edlegrad do something similar with her Crest, making it appear above her hand and whatnot - "

_**. . .**_

Across the monastery grounds, Hubert had the sudden urge to reprimand a certain professor on the mispronunciation of Lady Edelgard's name.

_**. . .**_

" - but I'm not sure if that follows a similar concept. Never tried since I don't have a Crest," Robin continued, shocking Lysithea. She was sure that he had a Crest, given his extensive knowledge and abilities. "But hey, you can definitely do it once you have a good control over mana. In fact, the things you can do with magic is pretty much limitless, but it's also a _very_ long and tedious road. There's a good reason why nearly every spellcaster in the world stick with the standard spells without doing anything new. Even spells without arrays are uncommon. To get the results you want, you'll need a considerable amount of ambition, perseverance, and drive."

Lysithea nodded as she listened. If all it took were those three traits, then she had them in full and _more_.

"I can do it," she said with confidence.

She _had_ to do it. If she couldn't even get a runeless spell down, then her own dream would be nigh-impossible to make a reality.

"Then let's get back to learning, shall we?"

_**. . .**_

Hours later, Lysithea was still struggling with the runes in her bedroom.

"Rai, Ful, Gos," she quietly chanted.

The runes for Rai and Ful appeared in front of her but the moment Gos appeared, all three runes sputtered out. Again.

"Uggghhh… This is a lot more difficult than I expected," she groaned. "Professor makes it look so easy. Just a single wave and it works for him. Seal arrays are so much easier. But I guess that's just because I'm so used to using them."

She took a look over at her lamp and frowned at how little of the candle wax remained. One look out the window and she realized that the sun had long set and the stars were out.

With another groan, she rubbed her tired eyes but didn't clean up just yet. As long as the candle still burned, she had time left to study.

Moving her current notes to the side, she looked for the notes that Professor Robin gave her that detailed all the runes, their names, and their uses. Maybe there was something with the Gos rune that she was using incorrectly.

A frown marred Lysithea's face when the notes never appeared.

_'Perhaps I missed it,'_ she thought to herself, rifling through her notes again. Nothing. _'It's not here. Did I leave it back in the classroom?'_

She looked out the window again and grimaced. As much as she wanted to go and get the professor's notes, she also didn't want to leave and roam the monastery at night. At the same time, she _really_ wanted to review her notes one last time before going to sleep. She was on the verge of figuring out why she kept messing up. She _knew_ it.

But it was also night. And dark. _Very_ dark.

"It's only two buildings over," she said to herself, walking across the wooden floor of her room. She slowly reached for her doorknob and tightly grabbed onto it with a hand that definitely was not shaking. "I can do this. I'm not scared, I'm not scared."

She slowly opened the door, it's iron hinges rotating without a sound. The chilly night air immediately rushed into her room, threatening to blow out the candles on her desk and rustling her papers. Her thin nightgown did nothing to protect her from the cold, and she shivered as she walked back into her room to grab her academy jacket. After throwing it on and swapping her bunny slippers for shoes, she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

The darkness of the night stretched out infinitely in front of her, making the classrooms' building look so far away. She stood still for a few seconds, letting her eyes adjust to the lighting. Or lack thereof.

"Only two buildings over," she quietly repeated as her eyes got used to the darkness surrounding her. She could make out the pond and botanical garden to her right and the dining hall looming over her on her left. "I'm staring at it now. I can see the roof of the building beyond the dining hall. All I have to do is walk around up these steps, pass the little gardens, enter the classroom, and walk back. That's all. Nothing more to it."

Were it so easy, that is.

She tentatively took one step forward. Then another. Then a third. A fourth. Her soft footsteps barely made any noise as she continued her slow walk across the moonlit grounds. The wind whistled between the trees and rustled the nearby bushes. The shadows seemed to move about and she swore she heard whispers being carried over by the wind. The squeaks of the metal gates turned sounded so loud to her that she was surprised that no one rushed over in her direction.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally reached the Golden Deers' classroom. The door was unlocked, as it usually was, and she peeked inside. A lone beam of moonlight shone in from the window behind the professor's desk, giving her just enough light to illuminate her surroundings to not bump into things…

…For the most part.

There was a pained yelp and the sudden scraping of a chair's legs against the floor, and Lysithea bit back tears while furiously glaring at the offending chair while rubbing her shin.

"Stupid chair," she grumbled to no one in particular. "Why's it sticking out in the first place?"

After shoving the chair back into place, she continued her way to her seat. Just as she expected, her notes were sitting atop her desk. She quickly grabbed them and made her way out of the classroom, not wanting to spend any more time in the dark room than she needed to. Despite being familiar with the room, being in it during the day when the sun was out was a stark contrast to now when it wasn't brightly illuminated. It felt warm (not in the literal temperature sense) and comfortable when she was in here with Professor Robin only hours ago, but now it felt cold (once again, not in the literal temperature sense) and she almost felt as if she didn't belong in the room.

She stepped out of the classroom and slowly closed the door behind her. Once it closed with a soft _click_, she turned around to head back to her room.

And bumped into a dark figure.

A startled scream escaped her lips. The person in front of her suddenly screamed back. In response to getting screamed at and the sudden fright getting to her, Lysithea also screamed again and thrust out her hands to shove the person away from her. There was a bright flash of light and the dark figure was blown back across the grassy courtyard and slammed into one of the support pillars. She raised her hands again in preparation for a spell when someone suddenly grabbed her wrists.

"Lysithea!" the stranger called out. "Lysithea, take a deep breath and relax!"

Lysithea followed the arm grabbing her wrist to see Shamir standing next to her. Seeing the familiar face, she managed to relax a little and took in a deep breath. Her frantic heartbeat slowed to a normal pace and she lowered her hands.

"Have you calmed down?" Shamir asked her, letting go of her wrist.

"Y-Yes," Lysithea shakily said with a nod.

"That's good," Shamir quietly sighed. "Mind telling me why you're out here so late?"

Lysithea raised the notes that she was still holding onto. Due to her clenching her hands not a minute prior, the sheets of paper were crumpled.

"These are…notes?" Shamir took the notes and flipped through the pages. "Spells, seals, runes… This is Robin's work, isn't it?"

"I was studying and remembered that I left them back in the classroom," Lysithea explained.

"And you couldn't wait until morning to get them?" Shamir asked, raising a brow.

"I…" Lysithea looked away and scratched her cheek. "I really wanted to get this down. I can get the runes to appear and can get them to almost activate but something keeps going wrong. I was hoping that the professor's notes could help me."

Shamir's eyes narrowed in what looked to be irritation or anger. It was hard to tell with the stoic mercenary-slash-knight. "You were practicing runes in your room? You realize that you could have easily set everything on fire or destroyed a part of the dorms, right?"

That, Lysithea didn't know. Whenever a spell array would fail, the only thing that happened was that the array would break down. There wouldn't be any backlash of any sort nor would there be a half-finished spell that popped out, so she assumed that runes worked in the same manner.

"Sorry," Lysithea apologized. "I didn't know."

"Damn it, Robin." Shamir let out another sigh and rubbed her brow. "It's fine. What's done is done, and I can't fault you for something that you didn't know about. The fault lies on Robin since he didn't tell you the dangers of working with runes. Just don't do it again, both the practices inside your room or venturing out this late," she sternly said, handing the notes back. "If you are going to do either of those, make sure to have someone who knows what they're doing watching you, _especially_ when you're working with runes. I lost count of how many times Robin set himself on fire or electrocuted himself when he started working with them. It became standard procedure to have a medic nearby whenever he would experiment with them, so absolutely do _not_ work on runes alone. Understand?"

"Yes," Lysithea replied.

A small smile rose to Shamir's face. "Good. Now get some sleep, okay? Your House task is tomorrow."

With a nod, Lysithea began to walk back to her room when something popped up in her mind. "Miss Shamir?" she called out.

"Just Shamir. No need for the 'Miss'," Shamir said. "Is there anything else that you need?"

"Only a question. Can I ask why you were out this late as well?"

"Patrol with Robin."

Lysithea blinked. "The professor?"

"Do you know anyone else here named 'Robin'?" Shamir sarcastically asked.

"No, that's not what I meant," she hastily corrected. "I didn't know that Professor Robin was here."

"Hmm. Could've fooled me. You blasted him across the courtyard and knocked him unconscious with that spell," Shamir smirked, pointing to her left.

Following the finger's direction, Lysithea's jaw dropped upon seeing her professor slumped against a pillar. She then paled upon realizing that the dark figure that she attacked earlier was her professor.

Due to her dealing with the fact that she just harmed her professor, she didn't realize that the spell she cast was done without any runes or arrays.

_**. . .**_

Claude found his new professor to be…a puzzling man.

With a sudden appearance from nowhere (quite literally, given the Black Eagles' report) and a clear history with members of the monastery and the Church of Seiros, he was instated as the Golden Deer's new professor. While strange, that was still quite believable. It was similar to Professor Byleth's situation.

Next was his relationship with the renowned mercenary, Jeralt the Bladebreaker. There was nary a soul who didn't know that name, and even fewer that didn't know of the moniker. Captain Jeralt said that Professor Robin had helped him and his mercenaries out two times in the past, both times having been before Professor Byleth could even walk on his feet. If Claude had Professor Byleth's assumed age to be just about twenty, that meant the captain and Professor Robin met just around eighteen years ago, give or take a couple of years.

Once again, not exactly unbelievable.

The questionable part of this string of information was the fact that Professor Robin looked to be in his early-to-mid-twenties. Maybe late-twenties, but that was pushing it a little, and unless he had some amazing genes that made him look incredibly young, he was most definitely not over thirty years old.

With this and the previous facts in mind, Professor Robin's age wouldn't have hit his double digits when he first met Jeralt and assisted the mercenaries.

Claude tried to imagine a ten-year-old child as a mercenary and failed. Granted, there were some stories about children being raised to fighters from that age, such as the ancient warriors that were said to have created the phalanx strategy, and ninjas that lived in hidden villages that trained to kill from an even younger age, but those were just stories, either history or fantasy. The latter example heavily leaned towards the fantasy group, in Claude's personal opinion.

Another thing that puzzled Claude was Professor Robin's skill in magic. While not unheard of, casting spells without creating a spell array was still a rare talent. In fact, Claude could count the number of people that he knew that did so on both of his hands, and only one digit was needed on the second hand.

In addition to sealless magic (was that what it was called?), Professor Robin cast his own "brand of magic", as Lysithea had put it. Magic that enhanced a _thrown_ arrow's piercing power to easily punch through a set of armor and into a stone pillar, wind magic that kept numerous wooden weapons afloat while also shooting them like arrows, a ball of electricity that literally _pulsed_ with energy, and a self-warp spell that included an oddly purple-colored lightning effect (which was _incredibly_ dangerous according to Lysithea (again)) was all unheard of.

Until now.

Once again, this wasn't exactly inconceivable. Perhaps Robin was simply a genius or a prodigy. Those popped into existence every now and then. But if that was the case, why hadn't Claude heard of Robin before? Surely a man of his talent and skill would have spread far and wide if he was traveling as a mercenary for years. Contractors, merchants, and nobles would have tried to hire him based on his rumored abilities alone, yet such a thing never happened.

That sent up a _huge_ red flag in Claude's mind. It wasn't that he didn't _trust_ Professor Robin - actually, no. He didn't trust his new professor, but that was only natural. Trust was something that was earned, not given. The giant red flag didn't really help much in that regard either.

But the main reason why he didn't trust his professor was due to the way he acted. Because of the _mask_ that he wore. It was a finely crafted mask, so much so that Claude almost didn't see it, and while it was a pleasant one, a mask was a mask in the end. It hid the true person underneath it - their ambitions, their quirks, their hopes, their desires - and unless Claude saw past a person's mask, he found it very, _very_ difficult to trust said person.

The professor's mask was one of a fool, a clown, but his eyes belied that guise, revealing a glimpse of his true personality. They were the eyes of someone who sought after a nigh impossible dream and was willing to do anything to achieve it. It was the look he saw in more than a few 'street rats' before he became the heir to the Alliance. It was the same look that he saw in Edelgard.

It was the same eyes that he saw when he looked in the mirror every morning.

Even now, as Professor Robin was leading a gaggle of students from all three Houses, that mask was donned. He and Shamir were leading separate patrol groups to cover most of the monastery grounds while Professor Byleth held the bulk of the students were guarding Saint Seiros's remains in the Holy Mausoleum.

"And that, my cute little students and the other students that are not my cute little students, is why we're the ones out here patrolling while the professor for Class Confusing is the one that's stuck down there in the creepy place where they store dead people."

"You mean the mausoleum?" Ingrid asked.

"Yeah, sure. That. The creepy place where they store dead people," Robin repeated.

Ingrid's brow furrowed. "It's called a mausoleum, Professor."

"I know that. Doesn't mean that it's not a creepy place where they store dead people," Robin said for the third time.

Ingrid's furrowed brow deepened. "It's a sacred place where Saint Seiros's bones are buried. There is nothing creepy about it."

"It's a _crypt_. AKA: an underground area where a _number_ of _dead_ people are stored. You are literally _surrounded_ by _corpses_ when you enter one," Professor Robin replied, making an exaggerated motion with his hands with each emphasized word. "I don't know about you, but I'd much rather not stay in an underground room with dead people. Imagine if some asshat of a dragon-god decides to cast some dark magic and reanimate all of them and make their sole purpose attack the living. An absolute nightmare, that is. And quite ironic, given that crypts are usually considered a "holy" burial ground."

_'A-K-A? What in the world does that mean?'_ Claude wondered.

There was a strangled squeak from Bernadetta. "R-R-Reanimated d-dead?!"

"Ay-kay-ay? I'm afraid I do not have understanding of this, Professor," Petra frowned, not having heard Bernadetta's whimpers.

"'AKA' is just an abbreviation of 'also known as'," Robin helpfully explained. "There isn't much of a need to use it, but it's a hell of a lot easier to say 'AKA' than 'also known as'. Partially because there's only three syllables as opposed to four, so it's less work on your part, and also because it just rolls off the tongue better."

"So, an example of this saying would be: Lady Rhea, AKA, Archbishop of Fódlan?" Petra slowly asked.

"Correct in one!" Robin exclaimed with a smile.

Petra beamed, obviously happy having learned something new.

"P-P-P-Professor?" Bernadetta, on the other hand, was not happy at all and was visibly shaking as her eyes wildly darted around. "W-Were you being serious about the dead coming back to life?"

Annette placed a gentle hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down.

"I'm sure Professor Robin is just being silly," Annette smiled. "There's no spell in Fódlan that can bring the dead back to life, nor is there one to control another person."

"Y-Yeah!" Lysithea hurriedly agreed. "There's no way that's real, right, Professor?"

"Nope. Totally true. Dropped outta strange eye-looking portals from the sky and everything," Robin replied without missing a beat. "Nearly killed my buddies and me multiple times that night. Relentless freaks of nature. Literally."

Lysithea blanched immediately and Bernadetta looked a step away from fainting. Ingrid rolled her eyes and Annette laughed.

Claude, on the other hand, smiled at Robin's words but was focusing more on Robin's facial expression. Specifically, he was trying to see whether or not he was lying. The dead being reanimated and controlled by someone sounded mystical and like complete nonsense, but it was also said with a straight face.

Having straight-faced his way through a good portion of his life, Claude knew that answering a question with a vague answer would sometimes only bring curiosity or suspicion. At the same time, answering the same question with a mildly farfetched truth would often come off as a joke to the other person, and then the second answer - the fake reply - was more likely to be taken as truth.

Of course, this wasn't the case for every question in the world. But it _was_ handy when applied in the right situations.

_'That being said, a dragon god?' _Claude mused. _'Despite the fact that there isn't a known spell for reanimating the dead, I could believe it if something similar to that exists. But there haven't been any dragons in existence since…'_ The small smile he was wearing turned into a frown once no one was looking. _'I'll have to visit the library again. I remember seeing something about an 'Immaculate One' somewhere.'_

He didn't get the chance to continue his thoughts any further when a frantic voice yelled out from around the corner.

"Professor! Professor Robin!"

A boy with grey hair appeared and was sprinting towards their patrol group. His face was contorted in fear and worry, and his eyes wide in fear. When he stopped in front of Robin, he placed his hands on his knees and took in deep breaths.

"Oh hey, it's…" Professor's eyes scrunched as if he was trying to remember the boy's name. "I know it's something to do with fire or something. Soot? Cinder? No…uhh…Ember? Red? Shoot, I forgot your name. My bad."

"It's Ashe, Professor," Ashe corrected.

"Right~ That's what it was !" Robin laughed, and Claude wondered if his teacher actually forgot Ashe's name. "What can I do for you? Wait, lemme take a guess: your group - Byleth's - encountered the enemy?"

"Y-Yes, Professor!"

"And since you're over here instead of being at the creepy place where they store dead people, I take it that Byleth wanted you to go and grab reinforcements?"

"Yes, Professor."

Robin brought his hands together in a clapping motion and turned to face the students in his patrol group. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and smiled.

"All right, kiddos! We're gonna go and help out Seaweed Hair Teacher. To the dead people storage, my little minions!"

As soon as he was done speaking, he turned on his heel and began to move in the direction of the museum. He wasn't exactly running nor was he jogging. It was something right in between those two. Like a light run, or a slightly harder jog.

The rest of the students began to follow him and caught up to his pace. Then the last three words that he spoke finally clicked with Lysithea.

"We're not your little minions!"

"Fine fine. I'll start calling you my cute little students again. Is that better!" Robin asked with a shit-eating grin.

"NO!"

"Yes! You gotta pick one or the other, my little student!" Robin laughed.

As he ran, Claude kept his focus on his teacher, thinking of ways on how he could persuade Robin to help him. The trust needed for it may not be there yet, but just because he didn't trust his teacher didn't mean that Robin couldn't be useful.

However, before he could even try and persuade Robin, Claude would have to see at least a glimpse behind the mask.

He had his own dreams and ambitions, after all.

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

**Just saying, this entire chapter was based off a single idea of a short in my head, where an easily-frightened character (Lysithea) is scared on accident by someone else (Robin). EFC (Lys) screamed due to getting startled, causing the other person (Robin) to freak out and scream back, then EFC (Lys) freaks out more cause other person (Robin) screamed, and then EFC (Lys) attacks other person (Robin) due to being startled and shocked.**

**Then I decided to build on the magic system. I get that the fancy seal array is only there during gameplay purposes and magic cast without an array (like the Western Church mage that shoots a Fire in the cutscene where you get the Sword of the Creator, and when Thales shoots that weird purple ball during the Empire's assault on Garreg Mach) is solely for story purposes, but I decided to combine the two. Tried to go for a simple-yet-complex sort of deal.**

**And then I delved a bit into Lysithea and Claude's canonical end goals. Hinted at Robin's too, though it's a very vague hint and could mean _many_ things.**

**Thank you all for reading/following/favoriting/reviewing!**

**(By the way, the Seteth-vampire joke is a JoJo reference. Specifically, a Japanese voice actor reference.)**

_**. . .**_

**Below are just two OVAs about meeting the Death Knight. Not canon to this story at all.**

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

_**OVA: Approaching the Death Knight**  
_  
The moment he entered the room, Byleth's eyes landed on the large knight in the center of the mausoleum.

"That must be the rumored Death Knight," he muttered to himself. "He certainly fits the name."

Towering over everyone else on his black-armored horse (how did that horse even get in here?), the Death Knight's red eyes shined brightly from within his skull-shaped helmet. His dark armor was adorned with a ridiculous amount of spikes that seemed more nonsensical than practical, and he lazily held a black scythe in his hands. Wisps of inky smoke seemed to come from the blade, giving it an eerie look.

But that wasn't the reason why Byleth was looking at the Death Knight. He didn't care about the spiky armor or the smoky scythe. No, what he was focusing on was a tiny trinket hanging off his belt.

"That's…the Death Knight!" Edelgard hissed. "Teacher. He is a powerful enemy. We should do our best to avoid him."

She said it as if she knew it for a fact, not something based off of rumors. Almost as if she knew of the Death Knight prior to today.

Byleth nodded and began to walk towards the center of the mausoleum.

"T-Teacher?" "Professor!"

His student's voices, heavily laced with confusion and worry, reached his ears.

"I heard you loud and clear, Edelgard," Byleth said. "But I still want to beat him."

The Death Knight clearly heard Byleth, evident by how his eyes gleamed maliciously from the helmet's eye sockets.

"Why, Teacher?" Edelgard asked. "He is a dangerous foe! There is no need for us to fight him! He even said that he wouldn't fight us unless provoked first!"

Byleth didn't respond as he continued to walk forward. He unhooked his sword from his hip and held it out to the side while keeping his gaze focused on the Death Knight. In return, the Death Knight slid off his horse, and Byleth got a feeling that he was grinning from behind his helmet.

"Oh? You're approaching me?" the Death Knight rasped. His voiced sounded metallic and hollow, almost as if there was nothing beneath the armor. "Instead of running away, you're coming right to me? Even though your House Leader told you how dangerous it is, like a student scrambling to finish the problems on an exam until the last moments before the chime?"

"I can't get that Dark Seal from you without getting closer," Byleth cooly replied.

"Oh ho!" The Death Knight expertly twirled his scythe his hs arms. "Then come as close as you'd like."

_**. . .**_

**_OVA 2: "I Told You That if You Fled…"_**

Robin whistled as he looked at the Death Knight across the room. "That's one spiky set of armor. How often do you think he pokes himself just by putting it on, do you think? "

"More times than he'd like to admit, I'd bet," Claude smirked. "Something like that can't be easy to equip."

"Do you think he knows that he looks…_not_ intimidating with all that on?" Robin asked. "I mean, I get that he's trying to fit the guise of a 'death knight' and all, but…come on. There's better ways to do that. At least put a hood over the helmet and remove those ugly horns. Add in some illusory magic so that you can't see anything beneath it except the red eyes, and bam! That alone is better than…" He lazily waved a hand in the Death Knight's direction. "…this. Not by much, but still better."

"Full agreement on that one, Teach," Claude agreed. "You think he'd take some tips on how to look scarier?"

Robin shrugged and took a single step forward. "Maybe. I'll try and ask - GYA!"

With a startled yelp, he bent his body backward as a scythe just barely passed over his head, missing his head by less than a centimeter. He felt the slight wind and heard the blade slicing through the air. He scampered back immediately, and not a half-second later, the scythe swung down where he stood a second ago.

"What the shit, DK?" Robin yelled and raised his weapon to block another swing from the Death Knight, who had closed the distance between them in a blink of an eye. "Alright, alright, I get it! We won't make fun of your incredibly super scary armor!"

The Death Knight paused in his attacks. His horse took a step back as he looked down at the entirety of Robin's patrol group. He sat there on his horse and silently stared down at them.

"You uhh…" Claude gulped and thumbed the arrow that was currently nocked on his bowstring. "You good there?"

There was no response for a while before he finally spoke.

"I told you…" the Death Knight began in a rattling voice. "…that if you fled, I would not chase you."

"Huh?"

Claude and Robin's brow furrowed simultaneously.

"But you approached, so it seems that you wish to die," the Death Knight finished, raising his scythe again.

There was a strangled sputtering noise from Robin as he jabbed a finger at the Death Knight.

"_You're_ the one that approached _us_, you delusional ass!"

Before the Death Knight had time to attack, there was a wine-red blur that flew over Robin's head. There was a flash of metal, the sharp _clang_ of metal clashing against metal, and the Death Knight slumped over and fell off his horse. Half a second later, Petra gently landed on the ground and smoothly sheathed her sword.

"Holy fucking shit…" Robin whispered in awe. He brought his hand up vertically in front of his chest, perpendicular to his wrist and forearm, almost like a single-handed prayer gesture. "Petra, you are a god-sent angel."

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

**OVA 1 is basically my thoughts when I go through this mission.**

**OVA 2 is based off of my Maddening Playthrough since DK has his ENTIRE attack range active from the start. That means you either have to completely avoid the middle 10-ish tiles to not aggro or kite him over with a character with a high Attack Speed to not get doubled and killed.**

**At that time, Petra was my only unit who had a high enough AS to not get doubled, so I set everyone up around DK's attack range and ended my turn. My plan was to have Petra take a hit (and live), then Gambit-blitz DK the next turn to kill him, whittling his HP down by like 5-10dmg per Gambit.**

**What **_**actually**_ **happened was: [End Turn 2], [DK aggros to Petra and attacks with a 98 Hit Rate], [Petra dodges the 98 Hit Rate (which is an absolute miracle, ESPECIALLY on Maddening)] [Petra counterattacks with a 15|76|2 (Damage, Hit Rate, Crit Rate)], [Petra proc's the 2 Crit Rate], [Petra deals 45 damage, which is EXACTLY how much HP that DK had].**

**I fucking love Petra.**


	4. Chapter 4

**So. Byleth is in Smash Bros. Can't say it wasn't expected. New SSB game and given how well Three Houses sold, I was just waiting for the announcement.**

**But hey, six more DLC characters have been announced. One (six) last chance for Golden Sun to be represented in the franchise. Here's to hoping on a dead dream ever since Smash 4's DLCs.**

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

For as long as she could remember, Marianne had been able to sense people's auras. At least, that was the best way that she could describe it.

Whenever she'd be near someone, she'd get a certain feeling from them. While there were some people who "felt" similar, like Hilda and Annette, both of whom were quite sunny individuals, each and every person was unique. In most cases, a person's aura was very much like their character and essentially told her what to expect whenever she'd meet a new person.

For example, Dedue of the Blue Lions felt just as he looked - stalwart and unyielding. Felix's aura was like the ocean, both when it was calm and when it was a raging storm. Ignatz's was calm and soothing, reminding her of the library as students quietly studied and read. She liked being around him. Caspar was like a windy grassland - bright, open, and energetic.

At the same time, it revealed to her more about a person than she'd like, such as hidden emotions that people kept hidden deep within their psyche. She felt a bestial rage that simmered within Dimitri, just waiting for an opportunity to break free. A resentment that lay beneath Sylvain's flirtatious persona. The hidden fear and strong determination for…_something_ in Edelgard.

Oddly enough, the only person whose aura that she wasn't able to sense was Professor Byleth's. He was like a blank slate. Colorless. What was even more strange was that there was something else that resided in him. She didn't know that it was. All she knew was that it wasn't the professor, but something else entirely.

Nevertheless, she didn't know why she had this ability nor did she know anyone else who did. Perhaps it was a trait due to the Crest that she bore. The cursed Crest.

Marianne didn't consider this ability to be a gift or a curse, though if she had to pick one of the two, she'd pick the latter. She wished more often than not to know what people felt just from being around them. It was nice sometimes when she was around certain people. She especially liked being near Mercedes. _Her_ aura was always calming and accepting, which made sense given her personality.

This was all normal for Marianne's seventeen years of life. Admittedly, it was overwhelming when she first arrived at Garreg Mach Monastery. _Everyone_ had such a strong drive and aura, contrary to her home, and there was a motherly presence that surrounded the entire monastery. As the weeks went by, she got used to the numerous aura.

Or so she thought.

It was near the end of her first month when she first felt it - a horrifying and chilling dread. She froze up immediately as what was definitely the darkest aura that she ever felt entered the monastery, overriding the motherly aura that she constantly felt, and she was absolutely terrified. Aside from the warmth that covered Garreg Mach, her maximum "range" of feeling auras was no more than fifteen meters depending on the person. The only ones that reached those marks were the House leaders.

But this presence was at the entrance to the monastery while she was in the cathedral. She was literally across the entire monastery and she could feel _it_ walking closer and closer with every passing second. Her knees were shaking so badly that if it wasn't for her sitting on one of the pews, she was certain that her legs would have given out.

Her breathing quickened as _it_ passed the entrance hall, the dining area, and the main hall. For a moment, she was afraid that _it_ would walk into the bridge leading to the cathedral, but much to her relief, it stopped. Then it began to move up to the second floor, and the momentary relief she felt vanished almost immediately, replaced by worry.

_'Lady Rhea, please be safe,'_ Marianne prayed. Her hands were so tightly clasped together that her knuckles turned white.

She hated the fact that she didn't have the courage to run to the audience chamber. She hated that she was rooted to the spot and unable to bring herself to move.

It was about fifteen minutes later that the presence began to move again. It was five minutes later that she found the strength to move once more. _It_ was still on the monastery grounds, but it was near the market stalls by the monastery's entrance. She rushed out of the cathedral and down the lengthy bridge to the main grounds. Before she even made it halfway across, she felt Lady Rhea's familiar aura, one that was kind, nurturing, and near-zealous devotion, enveloping the entirety of the monastery once more, and let out a deep sigh of relief.

Not long later, the presence left the monastery, and Marianne felt as if she could finally breathe again. Her schedule returned to normal after that. At least, as normal as it could get at Garreg Mach with the three different Houses.

_**. . .**_

It was two weeks later when _it_ returned. She was on her way to her classroom after breakfast when she felt the presence approach the monastery. It felt as if it was still outside the gates, just around the second wall on the road leading to the main gates, but it was getting closer with every passing second. Despite her prayers that she was offering up to the Goddess, _it_ entered the monastery and once again made its way to Lady Rhea's room. _It_ stayed there for around fifteen minutes like the first time before it descended once more. Unlike the first time, the presence didn't leave the monastery. Instead, it was headed for the classrooms. Surely it would just pass by, right?

Much to Marianne's horror, it didn't. Her heart nearly stopped beating when the doors to the Golden Deers' classroom opened, and it's _aura_ flooded the room like a tidal wave. What she felt of the aura before felt like nothing compared to how it felt now, now that there was scarcely any distance nor was there any wall between them. It was heavy and oppressive, cold and dark, and almost felt physical, bearing down on her like iron weights. She began to shiver despite the warm weather, and her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

It wasn't until Leonie tapped her on the shoulder that Marianne realized that she had stopped breathing.

"Finally, a response!" Leonie said. "You had this thousand-yard stare for a while there, Marianne. Are you alright?"

She let out the breath that she didn't know she was holding and gave Leonie a minute nod.

"I-I'm fine," she managed to say. She was surprised that she managed to keep her voice level.

Leonie didn't seem to believe her words if her facial expression was anything to go by. However, she didn't say anything and Marianne let out a sigh of relief. She didn't know how to explain exactly what and how she felt. She tried many times in the past to tell those around her, but no one really understood no matter how much she explained it and ended up giving up.

Speaking of what she felt, the presence was still there, as heavy and oppressive as ever. While she wasn't exactly used to it, not that she thought she ever would, but she was able to think clearly and not focus on it.

And then she realized that the aura was coming from a certain man standing in front of the class. Behind the teacher's desk. Where Professor Hanneman usually stood. A new fear began to settle in her heart, and before it could fully form, Claude and Hilda essentially confirmed that very fear.

The man with the most terrifying and the darkest aura that she ever felt was now her professor.

Marianne just barely managed to pay attention as the new professor began the roll call, genuinely surprised that she wasn't completely freaking out. At the same time, she noticed that he never introduced himself. His name was only mentioned in passing from Shamir, the Knight of Seiros that was assigned to watch over Robin, and her name was only mentioned in passing as well.

After the roll call was finished, there was a pulse of dark energy from the man as he vanished. A moment later, his aura could be felt again from the north-west, which she guessed to be the training grounds. This was also confirmed by listening in to her fellow classmates, all of whom were muttering something about their new teacher and the training ground.

She didn't want to go. She didn't want to get out of her chair and get closer to the horrifying aura. The classroom felt warm, or as warm as it could get with _it_ nearby, now that the professor was gone. She didn't want to be near the man whose mere presence chilled her to the bone.

But despite what she wanted, she ended up having to go with the rest of the class.

When she and the rest of the Golden Deers arrived at the training grounds, the professor was standing at the back half of the sparring floor. He was twirling a strange dagger in his hands by a hook near its guard. Once the class stood in a rough semi-circle in front of him, he deftly tucked it behind his back, hiding it beneath his robe.

He began what Marianne assumed to be the lesson by talking about weapon handling, only to have Lorenz say something in his usual goading manner. This, of course, didn't sit very well with the new professor. Marianne literally felt his aura flare as he gave Lorenz a look that promised pain, casting a wave of malice to wash over them. Nobody but her felt it, and when the wave hit her, she couldn't stop herself from recoiling.

Then came the rain of wooden weapons that no one expected. Even Lysithea was surprised by it if her vocal reaction was anything to go by, and when one of the flying swords hit Lorenz between his eyes, Marianne truly thought that he was dead. She didn't even realize that she spoke aloud until the professor nonchalantly waved it off. When he created a ball of lightning in preparation to literally shock the downed student awake, Marianne feared for the worst. It was only due to Claude and Shamir's intervention that Lorenz wasn't electrocuted.

Once Lorenz was dragged off the floor by Raphael, training continued on in the same manner. The entire time, the professor was smiling, almost as if he was enjoying the fact that he was flinging wooden weapons at the speed of arrows. Many of her fellow classmates were cursing Lorenz under their breath after their turn, and Marianne couldn't really blame them.

_Especially _Hilda. She wouldn't stop complaining about both Lorenz and the professor, about how she shouldn't even have to do something like this, about how it was so much work, and that she was too frail to endure the professor's onslaught.

Going back to Lorenz; were it not for his loud mouth and him taunting the professor, they wouldn't have had an ever-replenishing arsenal of wooden weapons magically fired at them, all the while the professor laughed. _Laughed_.

The entirety of the Golden Deers went to bed hours later with their body aching all over. Marianne's last thought before blacking out was wishing that the next day's training wouldn't be the same. In hindsight, she should have known better than to wish for such a vague thing. She got what she wished for, yes, but in place of having to attempt to block a rain of weapons, they had to do their best and dodge. The professor continued to laugh on this day as well.

They all went back to their dorms in the same manner as the previous night.

When the other Houses suddenly joined the Deers for physical training, Marianne felt a rush of relief. Surely the professor wouldn't continue with his ridiculous exercises now that Professor Byleth and Professor Manuela were present.

Whatever relief that she felt was wrenched away as the professors for the Black Eagles and the Blue Lions gave the floor to the professor for the Golden Deers.

On a different note, Marianne couldn't help but feel a sort of vindictive glee as she watched the other Houses experience the same pains as her House did under the diabolical professor. The glee was quickly squashed down, and she was horrified that she even _felt_ that way.

By the time lunchtime had come around, every single student had their turn of suffering. Not even the students that had built up a reputation for having a large amount of stamina were an exception. Raphael was breathing heavily as he sat on the ground. Felix looked to be fine, but the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders and his sweat-drenched shirt said otherwise. Caspar was sprawled out on the ground with his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

Even Prince Dimitri was tired, resting his hands on his knees as he did his best to steady his breathing.

Marianne noted that the reason why everyone was equally tired was due to the fact that the exercises were finely tuned for every student. The more physically fit a student was, the more weapons would be fired at them. And faster, too.

This was especially noticeable when Mercedes had gone up after Petra. Mercedes only had a third or so of the weapons fired at a time and at a slower speed than the Princess of Brigid, who ended up dodging and blocking most of the flying weapons in a graceful display of dexterity.

Near the end of the training session, Professor Byleth wanted to participate as well, much to the shock to nearly everyone in the room. Keyword: "nearly", because Professor Byleth was the one that volunteered himself and also because the demon professor looked positively gleeful.

Professor Byleth was a skilled fighter. This was something that every student knew due to the fact that he was the son of Jeralt the Bladebreaker, and also because he was a mercenary for his entire life. The Black Eagles most likely knew of this first-hand, given how he was their professor and that they all went on missions together.

But hearing something and actually seeing it were two different things.

Everyone watched in silence and awe as Professor Byleth easily dodged the first salvo of wooden weapons without stepping out of the ring of ice by his feet. As the speed and the amount of weapons fired at a time gradually increased, he began to deflect more and more often while dodging. He soon began to only deflect the flying weapons.

Marianne turned her attention to Robin. He was standing still with his arms crossed over his chest and with a wide grin on his lips. His hair danced from the wind produced by the flying weapons, which returned to the air above his head the moment Professor Byleth knocked them out of the air. How he managed to keep a continuous cast magic without any visible tells was beyond Marianne.

After five minutes, the two professors came to a silent agreement as they stopped simultaneously. The wooden weapons, Professor Byleth's included, flew back into a basket in one of the training ground corners. The two of them stared at each other for a couple of seconds before nodding.

"That was…enjoyable," Professor Byleth said.

More than a few jaws dropped at that proclamation.

"He _enjoyed_ that?" Ashe bewilderedly asked.

"As expected of the captain's son," Leonie said between gulps of air. "I have a lot of catching up to do."

Robin nodded and he turned to Professor Manuela, who immediately blanched upon being the focus of his gaze.

"No. No no no, I'm completely fine, Professor," Professor Manuela hastily said before Robin had the chance to speak. "There's no need for me to participate."

"Oh, don't be like that, Professor," Robin grinned. "Everyone else had their turn, so it's only right that you do the same. A teacher should be willing to do the same thing as their students, if not more. Lead by example and action, not by words."

"I - Then what about you? Why don't you also participate?" Manuela asked, throwing the impromptu lesson right back at him.

In return, Robin twirled his wrist and the wooden weapons floated out of the box before falling back in.

"Get me someone else who can rain weapons and I'll gladly take my turn," he said with a smirk.

Heads immediately turned to Lysithea, who was being heralded as the magical prodigy of this year's roster of students. Every single one of them had the same look in their eyes, a look that conveyed a single message: _"Learn that magic and make him _suffer_."_

Lysithea responded by nodding firmly with steel in her eyes.

"But Professor, why can't we just improvise?" Mercedes suddenly asked. "We may not be able to do what you do, but there are enough magic casters and archers here to compensate."

Had anyone else said those words, they would have sounded cunning and thought to have been said for the sake of putting Robin on the spot. However, because it was Mercedes that said it, everyone took it as an innocent question from the arguably-airheaded girl.

That didn't stop some of the students from capitalizing on that moment.

"She's right!" Hilda exclaimed.

A look of horror dawned on the professor's face as many students agreed with Mercedes's suggestion.

"She's not wrong, you know," Claude said, grabbing one of the training bows and a quiver full of rubber arrows. "Deers! Ready up!"

"Et tu, Claude?!" Robin squawked.

"No idea what that means, Teach, but an eye for an eye, right?" Claude smirked.

Following his example, Edelgard told her House to get ready. Dimitri seemed a little reluctant to attack one of the monastery professors, but the fire in everyone's eyes swayed his opinion, and the entirety of the Blue Lions raised their respective weapons.

The sounds of bowstrings being pulled back and the hum of magical energy being gathered were the only thing Marianne could hear for the next few seconds. Almost every soul present in the room took up some sort of arm against the Golden Deers' professor.

"Wait wait wait! Surely we can come to a different solution!" Robin frantically said, waving his hands out in front of him.

"Mages! Thunder spells only!" Shamir ordered, drawing her bow as well. "Archers, aim well! We don't want any friendly fire!"

"Not you too, Shamir!" Robin whined. "That's just mean! You know my dodging habits!"

"Mean is just a matter of perspective. Isn't that what you would say?" Shamir countered with a tiny grin. "Take this time to be unpredictable. It'll be good training for you as well."

"You just want to shoot arrows at me without needing a good reason for it, don't you?" Robin asked. "Well, aside from the fact that I actively annoy you for the fun of it."

The tiny grin on Shamir's lips grew a fraction. "Guilty."

Whatever retort Robin had was cut short when Shamir loosed her arrow. The white-haired professor let out a high-pitched yelp as he dodged the projectile. Not a second later, the air was filled with rubber-tipped arrows, thrown wooden weapons, and sapphire lightning. The screams that were emitted from the sole person being attacked was easily drowned out by the deafening booms from the numerous spells being cast at the same time.

_**. . .**_

Two days later, Marianne was with Professor Byleth and almost a dozen other students from all of the Houses. The House professors deduced that thieves were planning on infiltrating the monastery, specifically the mausoleum, and the House task for all the Houses was to rout the infiltrators. Why the thieves' target was the mausoleum, Marianne didn't know, and although she was definitely curious, she didn't question it. She figured that there was a reason as to why the professors kept the reason to themselves.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the great doors to the mausoleum. To her shock, there were people already inside, most of them looking like common thieves and bandits.

"Shit! We were found already!" one of them yelled, alerting every other thief in the room.

"Stall them! I need more time to break this seal! Stall them!" another one yelled from the very front of the mausoleum. Strangely enough, he was dressed in the robes of the Western Church.

From her right, Caspar slammed his fists together with a grin on his face. He looked quite eager to start fighting. Marianne, on the other hand, was more focused on the large knight in spiked, black armor in the center of the room. His aura was dark and lukewarm, and felt like it was constantly shifting, like clay that had yet to take form. There was also the fact that he felt familiar, but she couldn't recall when and where she felt his Aura before.

"So that's the Death Knight," Edelgard murmured just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Professor, your orders?"

The professor was silent for a moment as he looked around. The thieves were on their way to surround the students, outnumbering them almost three to one.

"Ashe, Caspar. Are the two of you familiar with the others' patrol routes?" Byleth asked.

"Yes, Professor!" "You bet!"

"Go and inform the others that the mausoleum is the target," Byleth ordered, drawing his sword. Caspar looked as if he was about to complain, but before he could, the professor continued, "The two of you are the fastest runners in my group. Now go!"

Caspar looked like he wanted to argue, but once Ashe tugged on his arm, the two of them began sprinting back the way they all came from. Their rapid footsteps receded down the hallway, and the remaining students of the patrol group plus one professor was now facing down a large number of thieves.

"Double arrow formation! Outer arrow will be me, Edelgard, and Felix! Inner: Leonie, Ferdinand, and Lorenz! Dorothea, Hubert, Marianne, and Mercedes, stay in the center and provide support!" Byleth barked. "Stay by the doorway and don't push forward! We'll hold out until reinforcements get here!"

There was a chorus of various affirmatives as the students quickly moved to their positions with Byleth at the front.

Marianne lost track of what happened after that. Shouts and the sharp _clang_ of metal clashing against metal and the crashes of magic being thrown around were the only things that could be heard. She saw Felix retreat to the center of their formation to be healed by Mercedes. During that time, Leonie stepped forward to take his place in the outer arrow. She, Hubert, and Dorothea were throwing out spells left and right, and she soon stopped counting after the tenth spell.

She didn't know how much time passed. While she had a feeling that no more than ten minutes had passed since the start of the chaos, it felt like hours. Their frontline fighters had all been injured and swapped out for healing at some point. All of them…except for Professor Byleth.

He was their pillar, their shield that remained unbroken. He alone never took a single step back as he warded off blow after blow, took down enemy after enemy. Marianne was sure that he took some hits, but he didn't let it show in his movements. If anything, his senses and reactions seemed to get sharper. He moved to block attacks that would have been fatal to the students before the attacker even started to swing their weapon, from angles in which he had no line of sight. It was as if he had a third eye that saw everything around him at once, and under his watch, all that his students suffered were superficial injuries.

It was with this that he sent out a silent message to everyone in the room, both student and bandit alike.

As long as he stood, the students would _not_ fall.

However, not everyone was the professor. While he had what seemed to be an endless amount of stamina, the students did not. They were tiring and it showed in their movements. The frontline combatants were slowing, causing them to take hits faster than before even with Professor Byleth's protection. As such, they'd have to retreat to be healed, thus causing the magic users to consume more of their mana at a faster rate. Mercedes was already tapped out, having done the bulk of the healing, leaving Dorothea nad Marianne to take her place as the healer and leaving Hubert alone as their magic-offensive support.

But they couldn't keep this up for much longer. Marianne was almost out of mana, and judging from the paleness and clamminess of their skin, Hubert and Dorothea were almost out as well.

And then she felt it. The deep, cold, and frightening darkness that was the Golden Deers' professor. She had been so focused on the fight in front of her that she didn't even feel his aura until it was right behind her. Its weight hit her like a charging horse, and she couldn't breathe.

There was a streak of silver that shot past her head. A bandit that was a second away from striking Leonie from her blindspot suddenly stiffened as an intricate dagger lodged itself in the center of his forehead. There was a flash of purple lightning and a platinum-haired man appeared with his feet on the bandit's shoulders and one hand grasping the dagger. He kicked off the bandit, wrenching the dagger free, and swung his arm to create a gale of wind that pushed all of the thieves and bandits away.

"Yo, Seaweed Hair!" Robin grinned as he landed next to Professor Byleth. "You look like you could use some help!"

Professor Byleth gave him a nod and wiped the beads of sweat from his brow. "That would be greatly appreciated."

"Gotcha gotcha!" Robin's grin widened and cupped his hands over his mouth. "Come forth, my cute little minion students and the others that technically aren't my cute little minion students!" he hollered.

There was a surge of movement as seven fresh students rushed forward to take the place of Professor Byleth's group.

"We're not your minions!" Lysithea yelled at her professor.

"So you don't mind being called my cute little student, Lysithea?" Robin smirked, causing the younger girl's face to flush red.

"Teach, if you tease her too much, she'll blow a fuse," Claude laughed as he nocked an arrow.

"True true," Robin said with a shrug before turning to Professor Byleth. "You can take a backseat for a bit. My group and I will take over, and Shamir's group isn't far behind. We can handle the rest."

Professor Byleth released a small, near-unnoticeable sigh. "Thank you."

Marianne wasn't surprised that the professor was tired. He fought harder than any other student in his group, and having to keep an eye on all of the students could not have been easy for him. Especially not when he had to keep them safe as well.

"Turtle up! Stay defensive and keep the wounded and exhausted safe!" Robin ordered. "Claude, I'll leave you in charge for a bit while I kick that seal-cracking mage's ass!"

"Got it, Teach!" Claude replied. "Everyone, let's not let Teach down!"

As the students made a rough semi-circle around Professor Byleth's group, Robin took a few steps forward with his dagger in hand. He wore a confident grin on his face, but the only thing that Marianne felt when seeing it was a fear that slowly crept up on her.

"You're not getting past us so easily!" one of the bandits yelled, to which Robin only smiled.

"I'm quite curious. What's the Western Church doing, breaking into this sacred place and trying to break the seal on Saint Seiros's remains?" Robin asked, twirling his dagger in his hand. "Surely you must know that this will label all of you as traitors. Or heretics. Or whatever."

"Th-That's none of your business!" one mage yelled back, confirming Marianne's earlier suspicions about the infiltrators being from the Western Church.

Robin shrugged again. "True enough. I honestly don't care either way. I'm just gonna do my job, so no hard feelings when you don't get to finish _your_ job, okay?"

Having said his piece, Robin reeled his arm back with his dagger in hand. Every single one of the bandits scrambled out of the way in an attempt to avoid getting hit by a thrown blade.

Their fears were confirmed when Robin did indeed throw his dagger. But unlike what everyone expected, he lobbed it far over their heads and towards the Death Knight. The Death Knight raised his black scythe in an almost lazy manner to deflect the dagger when Robin appeared in place of the dagger in a flash of purple lightning. Grabbing the scythe's shaft to prevent himself from getting sliced by its incredibly sharp blade, Robin planted his foot on the top of the Death Knight's helmet, right between his horns.

"Sorry for this, but you're literally in the way, DK!" Robin laughed, kicking off the Death Knight's head and throwing his dagger again. "You can take a swing at me later, yeah?"

The Death Knight didn't bother waiting until "later" as he whirled around, swinging his scythe with the intent on slicing the white-haired man in two. He never got close as the professor vanished again in another flash of purple lightning and reappearing just behind the Western Church mage in the back of the room. The mage didn't even have the time to turn around before Robin's dagger found itself stabbing through his heart. The magic array that the mage was using vanished immediately upon its caster's death, preventing the seal over Saint Seiros's coffin from being cracked.

Marianne felt a shiver run down her spine. She was getting used to seeing people die, but seeing someone that was supposed to be one of Garreg Mach Monastery's professors kill another Church member so easily and without any remorse was something else entirely.

"Shit! Leader's dead!"

"Can anyone else break the seal?!"

"Are you insane? We need to leave _now_!"

The entire group of bandits fell into chaos with Robin's kill. With no one taking a step up to take leadership, they began fighting amongst one another. When a single arrow whistled through the air and embedded itself in one of their hearts, they all froze. Eyes turned to see who fired the arrow to see Shamir and the final patrol group standing in front of the entrance.

"Take them down! Keep some alive for questioning later!" Shamir barked as she pulled out another arrow from her quiver.

Claude sighed and shrugged in a what-can-you-do motion. "Looks like our plan for staying defensive was for naught."

Then one of the bandits turned to the Death Knight. "Do something! Do what you're supposed to do!" he yelled.

"Or maybe we'll actually have to do something," Claude muttered, nocking an arrow.

Silence fell as all eyes landed on the Death Knight as he moved his horse forward. The horse trotted over to the bandit that spoke, the sound of its hooves hitting the ground echoing throughout the large room and parting the crowd as it moved. The bandit was rooted to the spot as his legs trembled beneath him, refusing to budge.

"You…"The Death Knight stopped in front of the petrified bandit, easily towering over him while atop his horse.

"I-I'm sorry - "

That was as far as the bandit got before the Death Knight swung his scythe, leaving a trail of inky smoke behind it. The bandit stood still for a second before his legs crumpled beneath him, and one more second after that, his head slid off his shoulders.

"You do not tell me what to do," the Death Knight said. Although he was talking to a corpse, his message was clear: no one commanded him. There was a glint of silver in the air behind his head, and he turned around to block a surprise attack from Robin, who had flashed over from across the room. "You on the other hand… You interest me."

"Sorry, I don't swing that way," Robin easily replied without missing a beat, nimbly landing on the ground. "Even if you _were_ a woman, I don't think I'd be interested in you. No offense. I'm sure you're a good looking guy beneath that ugly helmet."

"You are worthy enough for me," the Death Knight continued, and Marianne couldn't help but see him as a small shadow being swallowed by Robin's much larger and deeper one. Turning back around to look at Professor Byleth, he added, "And the same to you. I look forward to seeing the extent of your growth."

Robin's eye twitched as he tilted his head slightly to the side. "Is…Is he trying to two-time me? With Seaweed Hair? Even though I said that I'm not interested?"

"Until we meet again," the Death Knight said, ignoring Robin's words.

Then the Death Knight tugged on a small amulet by his side and vanished in a beam of light. With him gone, the members of the Western Church looked significantly less confident. Professor Byleth's group alone had managed to cut their numbers down by half, and now that the other two groups had arrived, the Western Church was now the one that was outnumbered.

"You still have a chance to surrender and come quietly," Shamir told them. "Lay down your arms we will not strike you down."

Outnumbered and outmatched, the Western Church had little choice but to lay down their arms in defeat. There was a clapping noise as Robin brought his hands together before lazily waving his hands to the side. A powerful gust of wind kicked up from nowhere, messing up everyone's hair and causing all of the dropped weapons to slide over to the corner of the mausoleum.

"I thought you couldn't control metal weapons with that spell?" Lysithea asked Robin.

"Using wind to carry and shoot weapons is different from using wind to push-slash-slide weapons across the floor," Robin said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's just like how you can push some objects even if they're too heavy for you to carry."

Lysithea hummed in understanding. Her hum then turned into a startled "Eep!" as the mausoleum doors behind her suddenly burst open with a _bang_, and Catherine ran into the room with half a dozen Knights of Seiros behind her. Their weapons were drawn in preparation for a fight, and when they saw the disarmed and defeated Western Church members and the relatively unharmed state of the monastery students, they relaxed a little bit.

"Already took care of it, huh?" Catherine lowered her blade and jostled Shamir's shoulders. "Well done, everyone! The Knights will take care of things from here!"

A few students cheered while others, including Marianne, let out a sigh of relief. The fighting was over.

"Are you sure you don't want any help?" Shamir asked Catherine, gesturing at all the Western Church members that Professor Byleth's group took down. "Cleaning all this up is going to take a while."

"Seaweed Hair's group is the one that did most of the work too. Shamir's and mine only did some walking and a bit of running, so they'd be _more_ than happy to assist," Robin added with a malicious grin, much to the shock and outrage of his and Shamir's patrol groups.

"You can't be serious!" Hilda cried out, her pink hair flailing behind her. "You can't expect me to lug around corpses!"

"You're right. I _can't_ expect you to lug around corpses," Robin surprisingly agreed with a nod of his head. Contrary to his words and actions, the tone of his voice said otherwise. His already-dark aura somehow grew a bit darker as well. "I _do_ expect you to lug around corpses so that they don't stink up the room. Can't have one patrol group do a lot of work and the other two do nothing, right? Besides, do you've any idea how bad a rotting corpse smells? Your perfume won't be enough to cover up the stench."

Hilda's face immediately paled as she remembered who her professor was, and realized that she had to not only do physical labor, but she also had to touch dead people.

"Alright then, I'll take you up on your offer," Catherine said. "Professor Byleth and his group, you may go and get some rest. Knights, clean up the bodies. Make sure to prevent the blood from getting on your skin! Students of Professor Robin and Shamir's group, round up these _heretics_." She spat out the last word as if it was poison in her mouth.

As everyone began to move as per her orders, Robin's chilling smile grew as he turned to address the defeated bandits. "Oh, and dear Westerns! Don't try anything funny to my cute little minion students! If you do…well, I'll use you as my test subjects. I've been working on a sort of personal spacial pocket thing to store some stuff in, and I'm curious as to what'll happen to a person if I stick them into a separate spacial dimension. One that I don't have complete-ish perfect-ish full-ish access to, at least. I tossed in a squirrel once and it came back out as this weird lump of bloody meat. Disgusting."

There were a few metallic clatters a second after he finished speaking as the few who held a hidden weapon dropped them. A smirk rose to Robin's face as he motioned the students forward.

"Alright, kiddos! Let's get to work!" he grinned.

A chorus of affirmations were the students' response accompanied by Robin's gleeful cackles.

Marianne couldn't help but get a feeling that the evil-sounding laughter wasn't faked or forced, but was rather completely genuine.

_**. . .**_

Seteth calmly watched as Catherine and Shamir escorted the captured members of the Western Church out of Rhea's audience chamber. They struggled at first, obviously not wanting to be executed, but their postures quickly slumped in defeat as they realized that neither of the two female knights would release them.

He had to admit that he didn't think much of Shamir being one of the Knights of Seiros at first. She was first and foremost a mercenary, and one that worked as an assassin at times. To put it into her own words, the knight was only working for them to repay the debt that she owed to Rhea, which was not unlike Catherine. Unlike Catherine, however, Shamir didn't hold the zeal to the archbishop and the Goddess as Catherine did. Despite that, she proved her loyalty to Rhea by consistently being a scout and knight for years, and Seteth eventually grew to trust her.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the two new professors. Even now, he didn't understand why Rhea was so eager to instate Byleth as a professor in their monastery. Granted, he and Jeralt had come at a most opportune moment when they were in need of a third professor for one of the three Houses, but to make the decision without a second's thought was something else.

Still, Captain Jeralt was a respectable figure in Fódlan, and he was once the captain of the Knights of Seiros. Seteth figured that if there was anyone that could be…well, not _trusted_, per se, but qualified, it would be the captain's son.

On the other hand, Seteth did not trust Robin. At all. He didn't think he'd ever come to trust the silver-haired man. Yes, he could be cordial and polite, but that was expected of someone who was the archbishop's confidant.

While he could somewhat understand why Rhea appointed Byleth to be a professor, the same could not be said for Robin. Did she not feel that overwhelming darkness of his soul? Did she not feel the sense of crippling dread that saturated the very air around him? Did she not see the immense power that lay within him? Did she not see the danger that he presented? Did she not see the intelligence and knowledge that resided in his eyes? Intelligence and knowledge that stemmed from _years_ of living, might he add.

…No. Of course, Rhea knew. There was no doubt that she knew all of this and more. But therein lied the biggest worry in Seteth's mind.

Why?

Why did she still instate him as a professor? Why did she actively seek him out for years when they first felt his ominous presence appear in this world?

Seteth let out a tired sigh. This much worrying and speculation would get him nowhere. He'd have to get his answers from Rhea herself when she was ready to tell him, or when she gave him enough subliminal clues for him to figure it out. Until then, he'd keep his wariness and distrust of Robin.

That being said, credit needed to be given where credit was due. Seteth was not so petty as to let favors go unrewarded or unthanked, especially one that prevented the Sword of the Creator from being stolen. Or even uncovered, for that matter.

When thanked, both Byleth and Robin simply waved it off as if it was nothing, saying that it was simply their given task, and Seteth had to fight down a tiny grin. If only they knew how important their 'simple' task was, and how important it was that the Sword of the Creator remained out of the wrong hands. Or anyone's hands, for that matter. The weapon that was once wielded by the King of Liberation was not to be taken lightly, especially given its origin.

With everything said and done, Rhea dismissed the professors for the Black Eagles and the Golden Deers. It was at this moment that Seteth realized that the professor for the Blue Lions was nowhere to be seen. He checked her office and knocked on her quarters earlier, and both rooms were devoid of any life. Perhaps she was still in the infirmary.

He then got his answer when Catherine rushed back into the room.

"Lady Rhea! The infirmary has been attacked!"

The shock was clearly evident on Rhea's face from the news.

"Explain, Catherine," Rhea ordered, keeping her voice level. "I thought the infiltrators were routed?"

Catherine shook her head. "This attack was hours ago, Lady Rhea. The bodies of the healers have already gone cold and the blood isn't fresh. The only survivor is Manuela, but we don't know if she'll make it."

"How do you mean?" Seteth asked. "Surely not all of the monastery's healers were in the infirmary!"

"Manuela was found with a dagger that was sticking out from her back. Judging from its position, it pierced one of her lungs," Catherine informed them. "She didn't pull the dagger out, whether it was to prevent herself from losing blood or because she couldn't reach it, but it's still a miracle that she's still alive after hours. The healers that weren't attacked are doing their best to heal her, but…"

Seteth grimaced as he listened to the knight. Healing magic was definitely useful, but it was not a magical remedy that healed all wounds. Smaller wounds could be completely healed without any problem, but deeper wounds would take much longer and repeated visits to a cleric to be fully healed. Even then, scars would be left behind if the wound was severe enough.

Fatal wounds, on the other hand, had less than a coin toss's chance of success. It all depended on where the wound was located and the cleric's skill in the healing arts, but that only increased the chances. Even the world's best cleric would be hard-pressed to bring someone back from the brink of death, and such successes could only be classified as miracles.

…For humans, that is.

"Bring me to her," Rhea said with a hardened expression.

Relief and hope flickered in Catherine's eyes as she nodded, most likely remembering how she herself was saved by Rhea many years ago. As the two of them left towards the infirmary, Seteth decided to follow them for a different reason.

Garreg Mach Monastery's entrance security has always been lax. It was a place where the Archbishop of Fódlan resided, so heavy security was to be expected, but at the same time, it could also send a message that there was something out in the world that posed a threat to the Central Church. This, in turn, would turn some people away from the monastery.

But now Seteth was reconsidering the laxness of the security. Not only was the Western Church traitors, they also infiltrated the mausoleum in an attempt to open Saint Seiros's coffin. To add to that, Professor Byleth, Professor Robin, and Shamir's reports mentioned an incredibly suspicious knight in black, spiked armor, confirming the rumors of the wandering Death Knight to be true.

Lastly, someone successfully managed to pass all the security in the school, past the student patrol groups, assassinated a bulk the monastery's healers, and nearly succeeded in killing Professor Manuela as well.

Of course, Seteth's first suspicion was their newest professor due to the intense darkness within him, but he was with the students and the entire time. So unless he could split himself in two or had an accomplice, he was in the clear. But the suspicion would remain until the culprit was found.

He shook his head. "What a troublesome year this is turning out to be."

_**. . .**_

In a forest, far from Garreg Mach Monastery, two people were standing in a small clearing. The first was a middle-aged man with sleek, dark hair, and the second was a woman with grey skin and short orange hair. Neither of the two were saying a word, silently waiting for something.

A few seconds later, a pillar of bright purple light descended in front of them and a masked figure in black armor walked out. A white and red mask was placed over the helmet, covering the person's face, and a plume of red feathers descended from the top of the helmet down to the waist.

"You're finally here," the man grunted, crossing his arms.

"The church led a thorough investigation on the events that occurred," the masked individual said in a distorted, masculine voice. It was as if the person's vocal cords were made out of metal. "It would not have taken so long had the assassination on the healers been successful," he added, sending a glare at the orange-haired woman.

"Hmph!" the woman huffed and placed a hand on her hip. "I placed a dagger in her lung. Would have gotten her heart, but she moved at the last possible moment. I didn't expect her to survive and blast me through a wall. By the time I got back into the room to finish her off, she finished the preparations for a Warp spell and threw me into the middle of nowhere. Took me a couple of hours to get my bearings and find Arundel over here.

"Besides, I used one of _these_," she continued, pulling out a strange dagger. The hilt was black in color and the blade a greyish-brown, with a hollowed-out shape at its base. It didn't look too special, but no one could deny the ominous and unnatural glint that it held. "She won't be healing anytime soon, if at all."

She broke into hysterics after that, giggling at first before laughing so hard that she ended up clutching her stomach.

"Enough, Kronya. Your failure to assassinate the healer, while relatively insignificant, will push our plans back by that much more," Arundel said, silencing her immediately. Turning to face the masked figure, he asked, "What of the tomb?"

The masked figure shook his head. "The new professor killed the mage before the seal was broken. It remains shut."

"Hmm. The son of the mercenary captain?"

"No, though he did cause problems. There is an even new one, one named Robin."

Arundel hummed and brought a finger to his chin. "I see. And this new professor…this _Robin_… Is he going to be a consistent problem?"

"Possibly. He is currently listening to the archbishop, but he does not seem the type to follow any sort of hierarchy. There is a possibility that he may go rogue at any moment, and he is proficient in teleportation magic, given his display. There is nothing stopping him from simply leaving the monastery and school."

"Hmm. So he is a wild card," Arundel muttered. "If he truly does have the ability to leave at any time but does not, then that means that there is something worth his time in the monastery. Perhaps we could find what is keeping a hold on his interest and make him an ally."

The masked individual slowly nodded. "He is powerful. His skill in close combat is still unknown and his skill in magic is unquestionable, but at the very least, he is as skilled in magic as the captain's son is skilled with a blade. There are more details in the report, should you care to look at it. If he was to become our enemy, then…" He purposely trailed off, narrowing his eyes at Arundel and Kronya.

"Then why not just kill him if he's a wild card?" Kronya asked with a mad grin. "I can do it. I'll be more careful with him that I was with that woman, and I'll even make sure to kill him ten times over before I'm done!"

"If you try and assassinate him, you will do so at the cost of your own life and revealing us to the world," the masked one hissed. "You will _not_ do anything."

"Then what would you suggest?" Arundel asked as Kronya clicked her tongue in disdain.

The masked individual was silent for a few seconds. "…Nothing. For now. There is not enough information on the professors. Robin is even more of an unknown than Byleth. There is absolutely nothing on that man's past, and his actions are unpredictable. Perhaps if your spy network could scrounge up something about him, then we can take action."

Arundel unfurled his arms and nodded. "I see. I'll see that it is done. Now, as for the Death Knight…"

"He is yours to command until a need for me to use him arises."

"Good. Very good," Arundel smoothly said and brought out a small pendant from his pocket as Kronya did the same. "I expect a report on the situation by the end of this month, understand? Our plans will _not_ be stopped."

Not bothering to wait for a response, he clenched his hand around the pendant and vanished in a flash of light.

"Toodles~" Kronya grinned before vanishing as well.

With the two of them gone, the masked individual stood still. A jaw clenched from beneath the mask and gloved fingers curled in and formed a fist so tight that the nails dug through the gloves and into the palms.

"I swear…that I will burn your plan into ashes and scatter them into the wind, _Uncle_."

There was another flash of light and the forest clearing was devoid of any human life once more.

_**. . .**_

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_**. . .**_

**Yup. No Sword of the Creator for Byleth. Not yet, at least.**

**I brought Kronya in earlier because she's a character with potential, but she's introduced and killed off in the same chapter, not including the chapters when she's going off as Monica. In fact, all of the _Those Who Slither in the Dark_ characters are under-utilized in all of Three Houses. They're essentially the reason why the majority of the game's events takes place as they can be traced back to TWSitD / the Agarthans, yet they get so little screen time. This is especially prevalent in Edelgard's route. Why are the TWSitD only mentioned in a single line of text in the post-game cutscene? They're a major part of Edelgard's past but we don't ever fight them in her route, only in GD and Church.**

**Well, that's enough rambling on this topic.**

**On a different note: to those of you that didn't play through the Golden Deers route or didn't recruit Marianne in a non-GD route… Did you happen to notice that she never makes an appearance post-timeskip if she's not in your class? Yeeaaahh****…just think about that for a second.**

**Marianne deserves better. Btw, her sensing auras is not canon, but it was an idea that came to me super early on when planning out this story. I thought that it'd suit her, given her personality, character, and her "cursed" crest. It'll play into more important things later.**

**Thanks to all for the follows, favorites, reviews, and reads!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Ever look back on a few projects/work, almost finish it, decide to finish it tomorrow, and then that tomorrow ends up turning into months? Yeah, that's me and the latest/upcoming chapters of the fics that I'm working on.**

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* * *

**_. . ._**

Early in the morning, before the sun even peeked over the horizon, Felix was already at the training grounds of Garreg Mach Monastery. He walked over to the back of the grounds and opened the door to the weapon storage. A wave of cool, dry air washed over him, but it was no colder than the morning's chill.

His feet automatically took him to the rack full of wooden weapons, and his hand was already reaching out to grab a sword when he stopped. He turned around and walked a little further into the room to where the steel weapons were. Taking a steel sword off of its stand, he tested its weight. It was about twice the weight of the sword made out of iron that he often used, but it was something that he could get used to after enough practice. Practice that could start now.

Satisfied with the blade in his hand, he walked out of the weapons storage and stepped into the center arena. An image suddenly flashed in his mind: an onslaught of wooden weapons that hammered every inch of his body. He quickly shook his head to rid himself of the memory, though he had to admit that it was a useful method to test his reflexes, speed, and hand-eye coordination.

He spent a short time stretching his body, loosening his limbs and joints from his sleep. His muscles still ached from the previous day's fight in the mausoleum, but the pain was refreshing in a way. He saw it as proof that he worked himself hard during the fight and that he was getting stronger.

Once he was done with his stretches, he grabbed his sword and began going through his stances and forms. He knew the Fraldarius swordsmanship by heart and the motions were muscle memory. The movements of his arm, the placement of his feet, his grip on his sword, all of it came naturally to him after over a decade of consistent practice.

After having gone through all of the Fraldarius sword forms three times, of which there were over two dozen, he immediately envisioned an enemy and began to fight the specter. His sword whistled through the air as he connected form after form. He didn't stop even after his blade sliced through his 'opponent', continuing to swing his sword as if his 'opponent' was immortal.

It wasn't until the sun had risen over the horizon that he stopped to rest. He looked around and spotted the professor to the Golden Deers sitting on one of the low walls of the training ground. Perhaps it was due to the angle of the sun, but his usually-hazel-colored eyes seemed just a little _too _bright, almost as if his irises were created out of a golden flame. But after Felix wiped the sweat out of his eyes, the unnatural glow in the professor's eyes vanished, making him think that he imagined it.

"Ah, sorry sorry," the professor suddenly said, raising a hand in front of his chest that looked like a one-handed prayer. "Did I disturb you?"

Felix shook his head. His shirt was drenched with sweat, making the sudden breeze that swept through the area feel colder than it should've been.

"No, you didn't," Felix answered, steadying his breath. "Is there something that you need from me, Professor?"

"Not at all! I was just passing through the area when I heard someone at the training grounds, so I decided to take a peek. Then I saw you and was like, _"Damn, his movements are smooth!"_ and just continued to watch. You can go back to practice and just pretend like I'm not even here."

With a slight nod, Felix raised his sword when a thought suddenly struck him. He looked back at the professor, who was now childishly swinging his legs back and forth, and asked, "How long have you been watching me?"

The professor frowned as if he was in deep thought. It was a simple question that had a simple answer, so Felix didn't know why he was thinking so hard.

"Mm...from about the time that you transitioned from practicing your forms to fighting your invisible opponent," the professor finally replied.

A frown appeared on Felix's face. His forms, while numerous, didn't take _that_ long to go through. He was sure that the first few rays of sunlight had only just streaked across the stars. Judging from the brightness of the sky and the sun's current position, he had been fighting his imaginary opponent for at least half an hour, which meant that the professor had also been here for that amount of time.

_'I didn't even notice him until now,'_ Felix thought to himself. _'And I'm pretty sure that I shut the ground's door when I got here. So either he opened those ridiculously loud doors without a sound or I was too focused to notice him."_

"I see," Felix said. He raised his sword to continue practicing again when he was stopped by the professor.

"Ah, on second thought! A moment, if you would," the professor said. He quickly looked around the room, clearly searching for something. Whatever it was that he was looking for, he didn't find, evident by his, "Damn it, there's none here."

He then raised his hand out as if he was receiving something. A moment later, the air above his hand wavered before a vase suddenly popped into existence.

And shattered immediately.

"Shit," the professor cursed.

His tone wasn't angry or irritated. It was more along the lines of him having expected the outcome beforehand. Nevertheless, he kept his hand out in front of him and vases appeared out of thin air one after another. Each one shattered like the first, and each broken vase was followed up by the same "Shit" in the same tone.

After the ninth vase, Felix began to get annoyed. The professor must've noticed since he held up a finger in his other hand.

"Wait wait wait, I think I got the hang of it! This time it won't break!" the professor hurriedly said.

The air shimmered. A vase appeared. The vase broke.

"Er - I mean… this time!"

Another vase broke.

"_This_ time!"

Another vase broke.

"Wait, I swear I got it this time!"

Another vase broke, and Felix was beginning to wonder where he was getting all of these vases from. There was already a pile of ceramic shards on the ground, and they had to come from _somewhere_. Unfortunately, his curiosity was quickly overcome by his growing irritation.

"If nothing is going to come of this, then I'm going to get back to - "

He was interrupted when a new vase dropped into the professor's hand. Intact.

"Ha HA!" he whooped and pumped a fist. "See? I told you I got it. First try, too."

Were Felix a lesser person, he would have rolled his eyes at the definitely-not _"First try"_.

"Now, Felix, you must be thinking _"So what? It's just a vase."_ Right? Or something along those lines?" the professor asked with a wide grin. Felix opted to keep his silence, and the professor continued, "You're not wrong in thinking that; this really _is _just a regular vase. The only thing remotely special about it was the fact that I was able to take it out of my pocket dimension without it breaking, which is super difficult and annoying to do.

"However, it's due to the fact that this vase is just a regular old vase that I have the perfect exercise for you. From what I've seen of your swordplay, you focus more on speed and accuracy, landing precise and critical blows on your opponent. A chink in their armor or keeping themselves open or keeping their guard down, you exploit these, right?"

Felix nodded, not seeing what fighting people had to do with a piece of ceramic.

The professor then crouched and placed his hand onto the arena floor. With a finger, he drew a few strange characters that burned a brilliant purple on the ground and stepped back, motioning for him to do the same. A second after Felix complied, the writing's brightness grew more intense before vanishing. Suddenly, the ground shook and a section of the earth rose from where the writing once was, creating a smooth pillar of rock and marble.

Felix's eyes widened in surprise. He knew that he wasn't the most knowledgeable in magic, preferring to hone his skill with the blade rather than deal with the arcane, but he knew enough about it to know that earth magic didn't exist. The mages back in the kingdom dealt with the healing arts and what was taught in the Kingdom's School of Sorcery. He saw the mages cast spells of fire, lightning, wind, and even light and dark. He even went through the School's library before as he once found magic to be interesting, but there was never any mention of spells that morphed the very earth. The rarest known element that mages could cast was ice, and there was only one person in the entire monastery that knew an ice elemental spell.

Then again, he never heard of, or saw, for that matter, a Warp spell that had a purple-colored lightning after-effect.

With his curiosity having gotten the better of him, Felix did the most reasonable thing and asked the professor what he did, and what the strange writing was.

"Runes, my dear student!" the professor happily answered. "The only limit to what you can do with magic is your imagination, and I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Of course, you have to figure out the 'How' in order to do what it is that you want to do, but doesn't that rule apply to most things in life?"

The frown on Felix's face deepened. "Runes? I never heard of them."

At this, the professor frowned as well. "Really? You too? I thought it was strange that Lysithea didn't know of it, but this is two-for-two now." With a shrug, he drew a strange character - a rune - in the air. "You can think of runes as the building blocks for every spell out there. All you gotta do is think outside the box and you can do some wonky stuff. Like this earthen pillar-stand-thing that I made. You just need to think of what you're going to do step-by-step and create it from the ground up. Of course, if there's a single step that you skipped or overlooked, you'll just end up with a mess."

As he finished speaking, the professor placed the vase on top of his creation. He took a few steps back and expectedly looked at Felix. A little more than confused on what was being expected, Felix raised a brow in disinterest.

"Try cutting the vase," the professor said, gesturing at Felix's sword.

Felix's raised brow was raised higher and he turned around to look at the pile of porcelain shards.

"What."

He didn't understand. What was the point of all those attempts to conjure an intact vase if it was just going to be broken again?

Then, almost as if he was mocking him, the professor began to conjure more vases into his hands with varying results.

"Before you get the wrong idea…" the professor began as a new vase shattered in his hand, and Felix couldn't help but think_ 'Too late'_. "This is not me asking you to break the vase; this is me asking you to _cut_ it. As in, I'm asking you to slice it in half. Like how you'd cut through those straw dummies or those bandits from the mausoleum."

"How. The vase will shatter from the initial impact from my blade alone," Felix grunted. "This is akin to an impossible task."

"Mm, not quite. I know it sounds impossible - I thought the same thing when I first heard it - but I guarantee you that it is honestly and completely feasible," the professor replied. "In order to slice this vase neatly in two, you'll need a perfect balance between speed, accuracy, and strength. The perfect exercise, don't you think?"

Once he finished speaking, he took a step back to review his work. Excluding the one that was already on the earth-marble stand, there were only four other vases that weren't broken. Surrounding it was a second pile of porcelain shards.

"Can you do it then?" Felix asked in a challenge.

"Me? What do I look like, some sort of master swordsman?" the professor scoffed. Making a show of dusting his hands, the professor grinned at Felix. "Good luck~" he practically sang. "I'll leave you with these five vases for now. If you need more, you'll have to buy them." He then pulled out his dagger from behind his waist. "I expect to hear good news about this task, Felix. Years down the line, that is."

Before Felix could give a response, the professor had already thrown his dagger over the training ground walls and vanished a flash of purple lightning.

Turning his attention back to the vase, a tiny smirk appeared on Felix's face.

"You said _"Years down the line",_ right, Professor? I'll make you eat those words."

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

Right outside of the training grounds, an ornate dagger struck the ground. A second later, Robin appeared in its place with lightning arcing down his clothes, twirling the dagger in his hands.

"Yo, Teach!"

Robin turned to see Claude casually approaching him with a smirk on his face.

"That'd be me, dear student!" Robin said, gesturing at himself. "How may I be of assistance?"

"I've been thinking…" Claude stuck his hands in his pockets. "Everyone's been feeling down ever since Professor Manuela was attacked yesterday. So I've been thinking about doing something to pick everyone's spirits back up."

"Oooh~ Good idea! What do you have in mind?"

A mischievous glint appeared in Claude's eyes. "Well…that depends. You said that you're working on some sort of spacial dimension pocket, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you're pretty proficient in the Warp spells, right? Given how you Warp with your daggers and such."

"Uh-huh."

"And you said that you can do almost anything with magic, right?"

"Yup yup."

A moment of silence passed before Claude spoke again, almost as if he was trying to figure out how to word his next sentence.

"…Would you be able to create a new spell…? One where you deposit an item in one area and have it reappear in a different area?" he asked.

"That - " Robin's mouth snapped shut with a _click_. "That's…actually something that I didn't really think about. Theoretically, it shouldn't be too different from my storage. All I need to do is change the output from the input in the last sequence, swap a few Anis runes with Ler, maybe add a couple of Ruag runes in the middle, give it some more oomph. Maybe even an Eiht and Elef to help with the output - actually, no. The storage has too much force when taking items out, suspect it has something to do with the Release and Return variables…"

As he continued to brainstorm and mumble to himself, his hand had been scribbling strange characters in the air, which Claude could only assume were the runes that he was talking about. There were already over two dozen hovering in the air, each one humming with dim, purple energy.

_'Damn, I knew that Teach was good with magic, but I wasn't expecting something like _this_,'_ Claude thought to himself as his eyes danced around the magical characters. He felt as though he was staring at a wall of runes. _'I don't even know what any of these mean or what they stand for. It's like I'm staring at a completely different language.'_

"Ah, sorry. All of this must seem like nothing but a jumble of random scribbles, right?" Robin said, gesturing at the runes that were floating in the air. "You just gave me something really interesting to work with." With a wave of his hands, the runes all vanished. "As for your request, I'm pretty sure that I can work something out. How soon do you want it by?"

"How soon can you finish it by?" Claude asked in return.

"Hmm…everyone has today and tomorrow off to rest after the House task from yesterday, so if things go well…eeehhh…" Robin shrugged his shoulders. "I'll let you know when it's ready, yeah? How's that sound?"

"Yeah, that sounds good to me, Teach," Claude smiled. "Wanna grab breakfast?"

"Took the words right outta my mouth. Let's go!"

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

When Byleth fell asleep the previous night, he was in his dorm room. He didn't remember much after the fight in the mausoleum. The last thing that he could vividly remember was the arrival of Professor Robin and Shamir, but everything else was extremely hazy. He recalled bits and pieces of him giving a report of what transpired to Seteth and Rhea, and there was something that had to do with Professor Manuela, but he couldn't remember what it was exactly. All he knew was that at some point during the day, his feet dragged him back to his room where he promptly knocked out on his bed.

So when he opened his eyes, he expected to be in his bed. Or at the very least, in his room. It was only logical, after all.

What _wasn't_ logical was for him to wake up on a cold, stone floor. He sat up and looked around, frowning when he realized that he was on a strangely green-colored platform suspended in darkness. In fact, everything around him, save for the darkness, was green. The floor, ceiling, the railings, and even the stairs behind him that descended into nothing.

"You damned fool! What were you thinking?!" a loud voice suddenly yelled, causing him to jump in surprise.

He turned around and saw a large throne, also green, in the middle of the platform. Sitting upon it was a familiar girl in an ornate, navy dress and long, emerald-colored hair. She looked young, younger than Lysithea even, but her eyes did not have the youth and innocence of a child. It was the exact opposite, in fact, like how his father's eyes looked when he would recall tales of his past.

The angry face that the girl was wearing was something else though. As intense and old as her eyes were, her face was still that of a child's, and as such, Byleth found it difficult to take her anger and rage seriously. Not to mention he was still incredibly tired.

He missed his bed already.

"Hello, Sothis," Byleth pleasantly said. Or at least what he hoped was a pleasant tone.

"Don't _"Hello, Sothis"_ me!" Sothis yelled, crossing her arms. "Answer my question! What were you thinking yesterday when you used my power so many times! The power of a goddess is _not_ to be taken lightly! What do you think would happen if a mortal took hold of a Divine's full power?"

Figuring that her question was of the rhetorical variety, Byleth opted to remain silent. His assumption proved to be correct not a second later as Sothis continued to yell at him.

"The mortal would cease to exist! And not painlessly, might I add! The Divine essence would tear apart the mortal's body and soul!" Sothis reprimanded. "So what were you thinking when you used my power to turn back time _nine_ times?! I told you that your limit was six uses, maybe seven if you pushed it, but what made you use it _nine_ times?! It's a miracle that you're even alive at this point!"

"My students were in danger," Byleth replied.

"They weren't in as much danger as you thought. You were just being overprotective" Sothis said with a roll of her eyes. "I was watching the entire time, you know. It was only on four occasions that your students would have received a fatal blow from those ruffians. The five other times would have ended up with your students suffering from superficial wounds that could be healed without any danger to their lives."

"Perhaps. But that would have meant that Dorothea, Marianne, and Mercedes would have to heal more often," Byleth said, recalling the fight. "Mercedes had exhausted her supply of mana the fastest, and Dorothea and Marianne had also shown signs of mana exhaustion. Had those five times not been used to keep the students from harm, then both Dorothea and Marianne would have completely exhausted themselves as well, leaving us with no healers."

"The other patrol groups were on their way and you would've had support soon enough."

"Perhaps," Byleth said again. "But I had no way of knowing when the first group would arrive. I couldn't take that chance."

Sothis's eyes narrowed at him. "So you're saying that you'd risk your own death for your students? Some of which aren't even in your House?"

"Yes," Byleth immediately answered.

They stared at each other in silence, neither of them wanting to back down. Sothis wanted to keep Byleth safe above all else while Byleth valued his students' lives as a greater importance than his own injuries. Both reasons were arguably correct. On one hand, Sothis wanted to keep Byleth safe as she was in him. On the other hand, Byleth saw it as his duty as a professor to keep his students out of danger to the best of his ability. As long as he wasn't dead and they were alive, that was good enough for him.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sothis took in a deep breath and let out a long sigh.

"Alright, fine," she said, drawing out her "fine". "It's not like I can really stop you from doing anything. Just don't go past your limit again. You truly did almost die earlier when you fell asleep."

Byleth's eyes widened. He knew that he was exhausted and he knew the consequences of using Sothis's power too many times, but he didn't know exactly how close to death he was.

"I'll try," he promised.

"That's not really reassuring," Sothis said, sighing again. "But I suppose that's the best I can get. Though I guess this won't be the first time that you recklessly throw yourself into danger. Whatever happened to being wary of your surroundings?"

"I am still wary. I just can't be everywhere at once and having time to think about my actions helps when there are multiple things to do," Byleth said. His brow then furrowed as he remembered the first words that she said to him after Robin's arrival in the Red Canyon. "Sothis? What did you mean when you told me to be wary of Robin? That there was a dark presence within him?"

"I mean exactly what I said."

A few seconds passed as he mulled over her words. "Is he dangerous?"

"I don't know. I've never interacted with him nor do I know him," Sothis said. "All I know is that there's some_thing_ inside him. Whether or not he's dangerous…I suppose that depends on who it is that you ask. Let me ask you this: are _you _dangerous?"

That question gave him pause. He realized that it really did depend on who was being asked. To his students and the other mercenaries in his father's company, he wouldn't be considered dangerous. But to those that would bring harm to them? That was a completely different story.

"Evil and darkness are not one and the same," Sothis continued. "And from what I've seen of Robin through you, he does not seem like what you would call an evil person."

Byleth nodded in agreement. That was his assessment on his fellow professor as well.

"However, there _is_ something off about him. Almost as if he's not…fully there," Sothis mumbled. "It's as if…"

She trailed off, covering her mouth with one hand. A contemplative look fell upon her face and she remained silent for a few seconds.

"Sothis?" Byleth called out, feeling a little worried.

With a shake of her head, she sat back into her oversized throne.

"It's nothing. Never mind what I said," Sothis said. "In any case, while Robin may not be necessarily evil, I cannot find it in myself to trust that man. It would be best if you - "

_*BOOM*_

A thunderous sound interrupted her, shaking the room itself. The darkness surrounding them descended upon Byleth, swallowing him in less than a second. For the next few seconds, he heard nothing, felt nothing, and saw nothing.

Then the darkness receded, and Byleth was staring at the familiar ceiling of his room. A groan escaped his lips as he sat up.

"Sothis?" he called out.

_'I'm here,'_ Sothis responded, her voice resounding in his head as usual. _'It would seem that whatever it was - '_

_*Knock knock*_

_' - the knocking, I suppose, was enough to wake you up.'_ She sighed. _'You always have been a light sleeper. Might as well go and see who it is.'_

Byleth pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his head throbbed in pain. Slipping on his shoes, he made his way over to the door and opened it.

"Ah, Professor, you're - " Edelgard's eyes suddenly widened as she took a step closer to him. "Professor, are you feeling alright? You look sick."

"I'm fine. Just a little headache," he replied.

"…" Edelgard silently regarded him with an unreadable expression on her face. "I see. In any case, a few of us were wondering where you were. I didn't think that you were in your room the entire time."

"Wouldn't the rooms be the first place to check?"

"W-Well, yes…" Edelgard cleared her throat, covering her mouth with a fist, and averted her gaze. "But no, we did not. You're usually seen everywhere else but in your room, so we thought that you might have been someplace else."

Technically, she wasn't wrong. His body might have been in his bed the entire time, but he vividly remembered being with Sothis in some sort of green-colored throne room.

"Since you've been asleep since last night, I would assume that you'd be quite famished. Am I right, Professor?" Edelgard asked. When Byleth nodded in response, a smile rose to her face. "Then would you like to join me for some tea and a few snacks in the meantime? Lunch is still a couple of hours away."

"Tea?" Byleth quizzically raised a brow.

Edelgard cleared her throat again. Perhaps she was getting sick as well?

"To be completely honest, I have been receiving packages from Enbarr as of late, and many of them contain cakes and pastries. I'm afraid that I cannot eat them all by myself, and it would be a waste to throw them out or to let them spoil."

That made sense. It truly would be a waste to let delicacies spoil. On the other hand…

"Why not invite Lysithea? She loves sweets, so I think she'd enjoy them better."

"Th-that's… I never talked to her before, so it would be awkward to simply go up and invite her to tea."

"Hmm. That is true. Still, I'm sure that there are other students that would enjoy the sweets more than me. Say, Dorothea and Mercedes," Byleth said.

"Professor, you…" Edelgard let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head. "I am sure that there are others that would enjoy them, but I am asking _you_, Professor."

It was then that Byleth noticed that Edelgard's cheeks were tinged with pink. She didn't seem to be sick, so the most logical conclusion would be that she was embarrassed.

_'But what could embarrass Edelgard to the point that she'd request a private tea session with me?'_ Byleth wondered. _'__Her grades are exceptional and her combat skills are one of the best amongst the students. Unless…'_

During his musings, the pink of Edelgard's cheeks grew in both size and intensity, and she began to look unsettled.

"Professor? Your answer?" she urged.

_'Ah! Now I see!'_ Byleth hurrah'd inside his head. _'Despite being one of the best students in the year, she must have studied very diligently in order to have achieved those scores! So for her to come to me must mean that there is something that she doesn't understand, and she doesn't want to lose face in front of the others. She must be feeling the pressure of being at the top.'_

"Very well, Edelgard," Byleth finally said. "I'd be more than happy to join you."

Edelgard's face lit up immediately before she quickly controlled herself and set her face into a more neutral expression.

"Understood, Professor!" Edelgard smiled and motioned for them to walk. "Shall we, then?"

**_. . ._**

Not far from Byleth's room, right by the stairs leading the public bath and sauna, Jeralt shook his head in exasperation.

"Something wrong, Captain?" Alois asked.

"Not really. Just…" Jeralt let out a sigh. "I just realized that there's a lot of things that I still didn't teach the kid. How to read some signs being one of them."

A confused look settled on Alois's face as he scratched his chin. "I thought your son is literate?"

"Not the kind of reading that I'm talking about, Alois." With another sigh, he mumbled, "I hope this doesn't turn into anything too serious…"

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

Shamir was someone that had a good grasp of what she liked and didn't like. There were very few things in the world that would be in both categories.

For example, she didn't like dealing with haughty nobles and hated insects. On the other hand, she greatly enjoyed getting paid and some peacetime alone. She also enjoyed coffee, of which she was roasting the beans for at the very moment in her room.

"Seriously! The absolute nerve of that guy! I wanted to punch him in the face!" Catherine irritably yelled, her voice bouncing off the walls of the room.

Catherine was one of the few things that bordered just on the line of both like and dislike. It varied often depending on the circumstance. While yes, Shamir did enjoy her company, the times that Catherine was around tended to clash with her personal quiet time. Then again, Shamir _was_ the one that agreed to their meetup, so she really couldn't complain at the moment.

"Who does he think he is, telling me that? Saying that I'd be more beautiful if I threw away my sword and was on his bed?!"

"That's why you should be a mercenary," Shamir calmly said in direct contrast to Catherine's fury. "If a noble annoys you, you can punch them in the face and leave."

"Tempting, but I swore fealty to Lady Rhea," Catherine sighed. "If I acted on my impulses, then I'd hurt her image. On the other hand, if he dared say something like that to Lady Rhea, then I would have gladly thrown my sword at his face." She paused for a second before looking Shamir in the eyes. "You don't really punch nobles in the face, do you?"

Shamir's response was to give her a smile that neither confirmed nor denied it.

"Ugh. You're impossible," Catherine grunted.

"Hmm," Shamir hummed as she placed tea leaves into a filter and placed it into a tea kettle. After filling it up with water, she placed it over a metal basket and drew a rune for _flame_ beneath it.

"I thought magic was one of your weak points?" Catherine asked her, eyeing the magically created flame.

"It is. Runes help a lot," Shamir said with a shrug. "Well, I say that but I still can't do much with magic in itself."

"Where'd you learn runes?"

Another shrug. "Stick around some people enough and you pick up some of their tricks. Just like how you now use throwing knives when you questioned why I used them when we first met."

"That's a bit different. Throwing knives are tactical and have a use," Catherine said, resting her chin on her hand. "Drinks are something else, and I'm not going to pick up your taste for that horrible, horrible drink that you love to consume," she added, pointing at the coffee that Shamir was brewing. "I don't know _how _you can stand that drink."

"It stands on its own if you pour it into any sort of container," Shamir retorted.

A confused look settled on Catherine's face. "Stands on its own - what?" Then it dawned on her, evident by the exasperated groan she let out. "That was a terrible joke. Stop."

"Suit yourself," Shamir smirked, having finished roasting the coffee beans.

The olive-green shells of the beans had turned into a warm brown color, which was just the way she preferred them. She took them out of the roasting roller and into the grinder before heating up another pot of water.

"So much preparation for a single drink," Catherine commented as she watched.

"If it was easier to prepare, would you drink it?" Shamir asked her, already knowing what the answer would be.

"Of course not."

"Then don't complain."

"I'm not complaining; I'm just pointing out the fact that it takes a lot of preparation to make a single cup of coffee. If you want tea, all you need is some tea leaves and hot water."

A small smile rose to Shamir's face as if she heard a joke. "So you're saying that tea is just hot leaf juice."

Catherine recoiled as if she was punched in the gut. "No! No, it is not! How dare you say something so horrible!"

"Just saying," Shamir said with a shrug. The ground beans were placed into a paper cone filter. "I'm not wrong if you think about it."

"Tea is _not_ just hot leaf juice!" Catherine argued, slamming her palm onto the table. "Tea is tea! It is something that must be prepared perfectly in order to bring out the best of it! Every tea has different methods in which you have to prepare it! Some you have to slowly heat the water to bring it to just before a boil with the leaves inside. Some you can get boiling water and drop the leaves into it, let it steep for a few minutes, then extract the leaves so that the taste doesn't turn bad! Some you can leave the leaves in the kettle!"

"So much preparation for a single drink," Shamir smirked, throwing Catherine's words back at her.

"No, it isn't. It's just steeping tea leaves in hot water," Catherine replied.

"Making it hot leaf juice."

"It is not - " Catherine nearly slammed her hand onto the table when she stopped herself. She took in a deep breath to calm herself and slowly exhaled. "You're impossible."

"Doesn't make me wrong," Shamir said, taking the kettle of now-boiling water off the flame.

"It doesn't make you right either," Catherine huffed, scratching the side of her head in irritation. "Tch, saying that reminds me of something that some guy I met once said._ "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right."_ Friggin' contracting himself by saying that."

Shamir shrugged again as she poured some tea into Catherine's cup. "I can get what he was saying. Morally correct and logically correct are two different things. I suppose it depends on how you want to look at things."

"What depends on how you look at things?" a new voice suddenly asked.

The two Knights jumped in their seats as they turned around to see Robin's head suspended in mid-air. There was a very unknightly scream from Catherine as she jumped out of her chair and reactively threw her tea at Robin's face, eliciting a very pained scream from Robin that was many octaves higher than normal as boiling hot leaf juice splashed against his face.

"Hellspawn!" Catherine roared as she drew her sword, Thunderbrand. Black-red lightning crackled to life from its branching blades as she raised it above her head.

"HYAAAA! WAIT WAIT WAIT!" Robin shrieked, his head floating bobbing back and forth frantically. It was as if his head was stuck inside an invisible wall and he was trying to pull himself backward to no avail. "I'm a friendly! Friendly! Not enemy!"

It was only due to Shamir grabbing onto Catherine's arms from behind that prevented Thunderbrand's branching blades from cleaving Robin's head in two.

"Woah there," Shamir said. "Don't do that just yet."

"What do you mean _"yet"_?!" Robin cried out.

"Wait 'til he's fired from his job and then you can cut off his head," Shamir casually continued, much to Robin's dismay. "Do the world a favor."

Fortunately for Robin, Catherine managed to collect herself and lowered her arms. She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Then she suddenly stiffened and she placed her sword beneath Robin's chin, the tip of its blade a hair's breadth away from Robin's throat.

"Uhh…Catherine?" Robin visibly gulped, causing his Adam's apple to touch Thunderbrand's very sharp blade. "Wh-Why?"

"I didn't scream."

A confused look settled on Robin's face. "Eh?"

"I didn't scream," Catherine repeated with a low tone as a menacing shadow formed over her eyes. "Got it?"

Robin's confused look deepened even more before his eyes suddenly widened as if an epiphany struck him. "Ah! That you mean that shriek from before was you - urk!"

He choked on his words as Catherine shifted Thunderbrand, perfectly positioning his neck between one of the branches and the main blade. If it wasn't for the fact that his head was suspended in mid-air, one of Thunderbrand's branches would have been digging into his shoulder. A drop of the tea that was splashed onto his face fell onto the flat side of the blade, sizzling and popping immediately upon contact.

"_Got it_?" Catherine growled.

"Y-Yes," Robin shakily replied with a pale face. "There was no scream."

Catherine curtly nodded before swiftly placing her sword on her hip. Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked out of Shamir's room, closing the door behind her.

There was a second of silence before Robin dramatically let out a breath.

"That was terrifying," he muttered.

"She has her pride," Shamir said with a shrug. Then she leveled a hard stare at him. "Why."

"Why what, my dear Shamir?" Robin grinned in an irritating manner. "One must be specific when asking a question that has many possible answers."

Shamir's gaze stayed on him for a few seconds before she turned to her table. Grabbing the kettle of still-steaming hot tea, she poured some into a cup. She then moved to place it on top of Robin's head, who immediately began to apologize.

"AaaAAaaaAAHH I'm sorry I'm sorry I won't do it again please forgive me it was a mistake I was just joking I'm sorry," he quickly prattled off in less than three seconds. It was honestly quite impressive how he spoke so quickly and clearly.

With a satisfied nod, Shamir set the cup down onto the table. "You really shouldn't antagonize someone when you're stuck in a defenseless position."

"Force of habit," Robin replied as an excuse.

Shamir sat down in her chair and crossed her arms. "So? What were you messing with this time that caused…" She motioned at his floating head. "…this."

"Uhh…runes?" Robin replied in an unsure voice. "I've been trying out an experiment for…what time is it right now?"

"Half-past four," Shamir answered, glancing at the clock on her wall.

"Already? Time, please stop passing so quickly. Anyway, as I was saying, Claude said something that really intrigued me, so I've been trying to get it to work. As you can see…" Robin rolled his head around. "It's not working as intended."

She raised a brow. "And how _is_ it supposed to work?"

"Like a magical gate. Stick an item inside and have it appear somewhere else," Robin said.

"Didn't you succeed then?" Shamir asked, picking up a stray coffee bean. She flicked it at Robin, and due to him being unable to move, the bean bounced off his forehead.

"Yes and no. I got the 'go through' part correct, but I can't get the 'get out' part to work properly. Whatever I put in seems to appear at a random location instead of where I want it to appear. After repeated errors, I got curious as to where things were going. Made a bunch of gates and yeah, here I am."

"So you stuck your head into the gate you created."

"Well, it was my hand in one of the gates at first, but then something really sticky and slimy touched me, so I freaked out and jumped backward, and then my head fell into a different gate on accident."

"And what if your rune cuts out right now and the gate closes? What'll happen to whatever is still in-between the gates?" Shamir asked, already suspecting the answer.

Robin's brow furrowed as he visibly thought about the possibilities. Not a second later, his face lost all of its color while Shamir rose from her seat.

"You're in your room, right?" Shamir asked. "I'll go and pull your body to see if your head gets unstuck."

"Y-Yeah, yeah. Please do," Robin said, and Shamir began walking out of the room. "Wait wait! Take my head with you!" he hastily added.

"…_Can_ your head even move from there?" Shamir asked him. "You seemed quite stuck when you were trying to dodge Catherine's sword earlier."

"No idea, but can you try at least? I don't want to be alone in a room with just my head. Imagine if my nose starts to itch and no one's there to scratch it for me!"

Letting out a sharp exhale of amusement, Shamir walked over and grabbed onto Robin's head with her hands. To both their surprise, his head easily moved from the spot it was before.

"Huh. Didn't think that'd actually work," Robin muttered. "Thought I'd be rooted to the spot. Then again, I didn't add any stasis runes for these things, so I guess it makes sense."

"This is kind of disgusting, holding a detached head like this," Shamir idly said as she tucked his head under her arm and walked out of the room. "Also, you're heavier than I expected."

"I'm the head of a human adult," Robin drawled. "What'd you expect? Me to be weightless? Also, you smell nice. Like coffee."

"Don't smell me. That's gross."

"You're the one that put me by your armpit."

Shamir grabbed a few strands of his hair and gave a sharp tug, causing him to yelp in pain.

"Ow!"

"Shut it."

**_. . ._**

**_. . ._**

The sun was nearing the horizon when Byleth left Edelgard's company. Company that he found to enjoy, he found. So engrossed was he in their conversation that he didn't realize that they had talked past lunch and it was nearly time for dinner. While it was regrettable that most of his day was spent on two things, sleeping and with Edelgard, he didn't mind it all that much.

The topics that they discussed were many, ranging from their favorite pastimes to preferred battle tactics and to the study of Crests. That last one was something that Edelgard was very passionate about and was something that they talked about for hours. It was a miracle that their tea didn't get cold and their pastries stale. He suspected that the magic that she cast in the middle of their conversation had something to do with it.

Magic was something that he never really delved into when traveling as a mercenary. It wasn't as though he didn't want to; it was that he _couldn't_. Most of his time went into honing his sword skills and staying alive, and what few magic casters there were in his father's mercenary company were always busy.

That was then. Now, he had an abundance of time at his disposal and skilled magic casters around him. Magic theory was also a class that was taught by Professor Hanneman and Professor Robin, and Professor Manuela had shown great skill in it as well. Attending one of their lessons would prove to be quite beneficial. Of course, he'd have to wait for Professor Manuela to recover first before attending a class of hers.

However, that was for a later time. At this moment, he was quite hungry. The tea and pastries that he had with Edelgard, as delicious as they were, were neither filling nor nutritious.

He walked across one of the courtyards outside the main building to enter the dining hall when he came across Seteth.

"Ah, Professor Byleth," Seteth politely greeted.

"Seteth." Byleth returned the greeting before looking down at the two plates of food in the man's hands with a raised brow.

"Oh, this is for Flayn and myself," Seteth said, answering Byleth's unvocalized question. "She has yet to grow accustomed to large crowds, so she and I eat elsewhere."

"I see."

"Well then, if you would excuse me…"

With a nod, Byleth stepped to the side and began walking around the archbishop's confidant when he was stopped once more.

"Ah, that's right. Before I forget…" Seteth began with a serious look on his face. "I've been meaning to ask something of you. There have been rumors of a woman carrying around the head of a man floating around the students and staff. If you have the time, could you look further into it?"

"Of course," Byleth replied.

The two men then parted ways in opposite directions, one towards the cathedral and the other towards the dining area, neither of them knowing that the rumor was not one of an uncertain or doubtful truth, but one that the students and faculty saw with complete certainty.

_**. . .**_

* * *

_**. . .**_

**I don't know why, but I always imagine m!Byleth as a bit of a dork when it comes to human interactions and relationships. Maybe it's the deadpan face that he wears all the time, unlike f!Byleth, who's a bit more expressive than her male counterpart.**

**Hope everyone's been well, thank you for all the views, reviews, follows, and favorites!  
I'll see you all in the next!**


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